


Flower Talk

by AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, But they will show up in other forms, Did I mention that I suck at tagging?, Drinking, Expect some homophobic family members, F/M, Florist AU, Freeform, I'll fix these tags eventually, Like these awkward motherfu-, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not so smart decisions made due to drinking, Oh and there will be puns, Oh and this will have cursing btw, So that means no Trolls, There will be cringe, Wedding Preperations, Weddings, Weddings aren't all sunshine and roses, all of the puns, cause i do, currently on hiatus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14260773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother/pseuds/AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother
Summary: Basically it's an au where Steve and Eli are grown up now (Eli had moved away for some years cause reasons) and now Steve is helping his mother and Lawrence plan a wedding and he has been tasked with flowers (among some other things) so he goes to the flower shop and guess who's the damn florist?Yeah I suck at summaries, sue me.I literally just wrote this because I ran into a dead end while writing a different fanfiction.





	1. Daffodil

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Guys, Gals, and Non-Binary pals! (nice lil Thomas Sanders reference there) I'm back!  
> If you guys have read my other Trollhunters Fanfiction, "Moments Like This" then you know that I promised a sequel, well that's going to postponed till I don't know when because I have hit a wall with it. So I wrote this trash instead!!!  
> If you haven't read Moments Like This (I'm not telling you to) then just to let you know that some original characters from there make an appearance here as well alright?  
> So I hope that you enjoy this fucking mess! Oh and if you or anybody you know is a florist and want to give tips then I welcome that one hundred percent.  
> This chapter is pretty short, just a teaser of what's to come basically.  
> Oh and Flower Talk get it? Kinda like Pillow talk? Except also different flowers have different meanings? No? Okay I'll uh...I'll let you guys read now.

Weddings.

   Everyone seemed to love them. And for good reason too. It was the union of two people showed through a magnificent ceremony. There would be drinking, dancing, laughing, loving, maybe even more than a few tears of happiness. And the wedding dress would often look stunning with the lace, beautiful embroidery, flowing skirt, a vision in white. The ones in suits would always look sharp as well. And the ones that were getting married…god the way that they would look at each other as if they were the entire galaxy; the look that often only exists in fairy tales when the princess would see the prince and vice versa. And the wedding reception afterward would always be amazing as well. The dancing, the exquisite food, the wine, all of the different elements that went it. How everyone would be dancing and having a good time, sending blessings and wishes to the happy couple.

    But behind the magicalness of it all came the  **p l a n n i n g**. Those horrible **months** of planning that came with stress, anxiety and waaay too much work wrapped in a nice little bow. All of the decisions that had to be made were astounding, from the seating, to the catering, to even what kind of napkins would be used. Truly, if two people could survive the entire planning process then they absolutely deserved to be married. Because seriously, nothing says ‘I love you’ like trying eleven different types of cake samples that tasted exactly the same.

   But the **planning,** it was why Steve Palchuk loathed weddings. Actually no, he didn’t _hate_ weddings, he just found them excessive. Honestly, did such a huge ceremony have to take place _just_ for a slip of paper that could easily be undone with another? Plus, he was definitely having mixed feelings about **_this_** wedding in particular. His mother, Susan was getting married to his old gym coach, Will Lawrence.

   He had already graduated and was now already twenty six years old but it was still odd to him. He wasn’t sure what it was, who his mother was marrying or the actual fact that she was getting remarried.

   After all, his father-her first husband- hadn’t exactly been a good example of either. Yes, Coac-Will had more than proved that he lo-gag-loved his mother but Steve couldn’t help but worry. And if he was going to be honest, he was scared. His own fear had been the reason why it had taken Will so long to get through to him and even know calling him Will instead of coach was weird to him. Sure he had called him 'dad' more than a few times, both accidentally and on purpose but now having it be true? 

    Anyway, back to hell-er wedding planning. They had not hired a planner, thought that it would have been impersonal to do so they were planning the wedding themselves. And Steve, being the gentleman that he secretly could be, had volunteered to help.

    Steve wasn’t in charge of that much, he had already hired a photographer who had turned out to be an old classmate, done the ‘save the date’ cards as well as invitations, he had been there when his mom had chosen her wedding dress which looked like an absolute dream. Now he just had to hire a florist. Yeah…perhaps he should have done that earlier than he had chosen to do so. But seriously, they were already having the wedding outside in the summer, why did they need flowers for Pete’s sake? Wouldn’t there be enough growing and stuff? Ah well, nothing he could do now.

    Which brought him to where he was now, in front of-he cringed when he read the name of the flower shop- ‘Don’t Stop Beleafing’ (although he had to hold back a laugh.) Although he had lived in Arcadia for a good part of his life since they had moved there after his mother’s divorce, he had never gone to this shop.

   But Steve had heard that it was popular and well recommended so who was he to be picky?

   There were a few hanging baskets outside, none of which he knew the names of. Hell, he could barely name a daisy if it didn’t have a tag in front of it. He had already started to regret his choice of offering to select the flowers and now he was just about to chicken out of entering the shop altogether to avoid looking like an idiot. But he had to admit, while he couldn’t name a single one of the flowers that were in those baskets they all looked lovely. And the smell was rich, heavy and absolutely heavenly. He peered in through the large picture window that showed the inside of the shop and the inside looked like the Garden of Eden had blown up in there.

    There were so many different colours and combinations that he could only look in awe. How much time did all this have to take? God, the maintenance of the place had to be hell. He had gotten a cactus as a house warming present and it hadn’t even lasted a month.

   A fucking cactus, didn’t those things not need much water? How had he managed to kill it?

   Alright, no more procrastinating. Steve took a deep breath, mostly to savour the smell of the flowers outside, and entered the shop. The smell was even stronger inside, with even more variations. One would think that it would smell like a bunch of perfumes, strong and suffocating, and while the smell was certainly strong it was not overpowering, it was in perfect harmony.

   Steve began to wander the shop, trying to pretend like he knew what he was looking for while he looked at the different types of flowers. Luckily most had a helpful little sign with them, hydrangea, magnolia, everblooming gardenia- he really liked how those looked, chrysanthemum, lord who came up with the names for these flowers? It’s a flower, not a science experiment.

   There a handful of other people as well, an older couple who were checking different types of fertilizers, an awkward teenager shuffling near the single roses debating whether to get one or not, a woman who appeared to be a grandma checking out the already prepared bouquets, and a man looking at some bright flowers that Steve didn’t know the name of. There appeared to be two people currently working, a girl at the register and a large man who looked like he could tear the sleeves of his shirt clean off by flexing was spraying some flowers with some sort of spray with a peaceful smile on his face.

   Then a little girl’s laugh cut through the shop. Steve looked at the source and saw a little girl by the front counter and giggling her little heart out as a worker that Steve had not seen beforehand bowed and presented one of those chrysantwhateverthefuck flowers to her.

   “To the fairest princess in the store.” The florist said in the most regal voice he could muster while the little girl, six at most, giggled and took the flower.  

  “Daddy, daddy! She exclaimed, running to the man who had been looking at the colourful display of flowers. “Look what I got!”

   “Aw that’s beautiful princess!” he exclaimed, scooping her up. “Now, help daddy pick a flower for mommy since daddy’s being a dumb-dumb and can’t decide.” The girl proceeded to giggle more and Steve had to smile at the scene. It was so goddamn homey that it actually hurt.

   Steve looked over at the florist and found that he had the same smile on his face. He also noticed other things about the florist. He had black hair that looked just a bit unkempt since it reached just to his shoulders- well it would if it wasn’t in a short ponytail. The florist was also shorter than him and skinny- not skeleton skinny, more like svelte, fair skin, huge round glasses that reminded Steve of an owl, and an apron that was a shade of green that screamed ‘nature’ and was almost as lovely as those green eyes that sparkled like emeralds glistening in the sun.

   It wasn’t until the florist walked up right next to him and began picking out some flowers did Steve realize that he had been staring. He immediately turned his gaze back to the flowers, his face the same shade as the roses that he was pretending to examine. He scowled to himself as he did so, he couldn’t be getting distracted damn it, especially not by some employee. Still, he looked familiar somehow. Luckily the florist seemed to have not noticed his staring since Steve's face had been half covered by another one of those hanging baskets things. Honestly, how many of these things were there?

   Before long the florist went back to the front counter with the selected flowers and began combining them with others, making a beautiful array, leaving Steve to sneak another glance. Seriously what was it with this man that was ringing a bell? The little girl that had received the chrysomething was watching in awe as the florist worked with the bouquet and offered her own flower to add to it. The man gave her a smile and added it even if it didn't exactly fit with the other selected flowers. The girl smiled and clapped, leading Steve to chuckle at the scene. Good looking and well mannered, he couldn't help but note.

   “Tell Anne congratulations on her promotion for me. And thanks for the tip!” the worker called cheerfully as he waved goodbye to the man and his daughter. The man now had a bouquet of yellow roses and other assorted smaller flowers in his hand.

   “I will, and wonderful job as usual Elijah!” The man replied, leaving the shop. His daughter happily waved back to Elijah.

   Steve froze, breath seeming caught in his throat. Elijah. The man had just called that worker Elijah. No way…no fucking way. Eli had moved away after High school to go to college. He couldn’t-that couldn’t be the tiny nerd from Arcadia Oak’s High-when had he gotten taller? Or had actually gotten some muscle? When the fuck had his squeaky ass cracked voice actually gained some depth? Holy hell. Steve couldn’t believe his eyes, what sort of alternate universe was this?

   “Buttsnack!?” he exclaimed, incredulous, still looking at the man with a slack jawed expression as said man was touching up some sort of mini tree bonsai shit behind him.

   “Excuse me! Sir, please do not use such language in the-" Eli scolded, turning around after he set down the small scissors with more force than strictly necessary before his eyes fell onto Steve, immediately widening to the size of saucers. “No way…S-Steve?!” he exclaimed.

    That stutter confirmed it for Steve: that was Eli fucking Pepperjack.


	2. Forsythia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A million questions were racing through Steve’s mind during the few seconds of silence that there were while they stared at each other in shock. What the hell had happened to Eli? Why was he working in a flower shop? When had he moved back? Did Elijah remember him? Well he had said his name so the answer to that was obvious, but how much about him did he remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than I would have liked but don't worry, this story will pick up soon! Eventually! Some day...  
> and you guys know how in Trollhunters they had the Creepslayerz team to bring them together? Well, here there's no monsters so that means no team, no thing to bring them together and no redemption arc for Steve. Please keep that in mind before you judge Eli's reaction.   
> I've pretty much decided at this point that each chapter will be named after a different flower.   
> There  
> Will  
> Be  
> Puns  
> Here

   A million questions were racing through Steve’s mind during the few seconds of silence that there were while they stared at each other in shock. What the hell had happened to Eli? Why was he working in a flower shop? When had he moved back? Did Elijah remember him? Well he _had_ said his name so the answer to that was obvious, but how much about him did he remember? But the only question that would escape him had to be “Did you seriously just call me out for saying ‘buttsnack’?” Smooth Palchuk, real smooth.

   “Considering that I’m pretty sure that you’ve scarred Mrs.  Lucile for life, then yes, I need to ‘call you out’.” Eli said matter of factly, hands on hips as he shot him a sharp look.

    Steve looked back at the older lady that had been browsing quietly at the already prepared bouquets did indeed look as if her ears had just been violated. “Ah, sorry…” he said awkwardly before looking back at Eli and wincing apologetically.

    The glare melted into a bright smile. “Well? Aren’t you going to greet me _properly_?” he teased.

   On the inside he was just about dying of nervousness. Calm down Pepperjack, this isn’t high school; there are no lockers to get slammed into. But fuck, even though he had _finally_ gotten his long awaited growth spurt it still looked as if Steve could throw him into a locker. He had been big enough in school, he just had to go and grow into fucking Captain America didn’t he?

   He hated the way that he involuntarily took a step back when Steve took a step forward. And that was _with_ the counter separating them.

    “Hey, Bu-Pepperjack.” Steve chuckled.

   “Hey, Steve.” Eli replied, offering a small smile that almost hid the anxiety that was flowing through him.

   They fell into another silence as the other customers finished up with their business, either done with their browsing or paying for their things and leaving the store as quickly as possible to escape the suffocating awkwardness. Soon it was just the two of them, the girl who was working the register and seemed to be organizing the money _very_ carefully, or was simply making an excuse to wait for whatever was going to happen, and the other florist who had not noticed a thing with how carefully he was fiddling with the flowers, treating the buds as if they were his children.

   “You finally grew facial hair.” Steve all but blurted, pointing to the slight scruff that Eli had, desperate for something-anything to say.

   The girl with freckles-Natalie her name tag read-burst out laughing, unsuccessfully hiding it behind her hand. Eli turned pinker than a cherry blossom and shot a glare her way before turning his attention back to his old classmate. “Thank you for noticing.” He deadpanned.

   Well this was going swimmingly. Could death just take him now? Please? No? Okay then, he’d simply find a way to make an even bigger fool of himself and just die of mortification. “I didn’t know that you were back in Arcadia.”

   “I moved back about two-no wait three-years ago.” He stated flatly, giving a shrug.

   It would look lame if he ran out of the shop right? But seriously, for three years he had managed to avoid running into Steve, had even started thinking that perhaps the past bully had moved away but here he was, standing in front of him large as life and still able to fluster the hell out of him as if they were back in high school.

   “Wait seriously?” How the hell had he not heard about this? “Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve couldn’t help but ask.

   “I didn’t think you’d care.” He replied as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Now, since I don’t think that a flower shop is your normal scene I assume that you’re here to buy something so what do you want?” Eli was not one to hold grudges, especially over things that happened about seven or eight years ago but it’s not as if he had any new memories of Steve to replace the bad ones. And there were plenty of bad ones to replace. But god, that fucking coward-

   “Elijah, do not talk to the customers like that!” A man, coming out of the back room, scolded.

   He appeared to work at the shop as well if the green apron was anything to go by, except he was older than the other workers. His hair was already thinning along the sides but didn’t stop him from leaving it longer in the back. His eyes were a unique shade of brown as well, a yellowish colour in certain light.

   “Sorry, Mister Blinky.” Eli apologized, looking down at his shoes like a scolded child.

   “I believe that it is the customer to whom you should be directing that apology to.” Blinky corrected, crossing his arms expectantly.

   Eli let out a huff and looked back at the blond before practically gritting out. “Sorry, Steve.”

   ‘Oh come on, what’d I do now!?’ Steve thought. Instead he said “No problem.” He didn’t think I’d care? Seriously?

   “Wait Steve, Steve Palchuk?” Blinky asked. Steve nodded. “Heavens, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Steve! Well of course you don’t pass by this part of town very often but still! You really must try to keep in touch!” Blinky exclaimed. Aaaand Steve could not remember who this person was to save his life. It must have shown on his face because the man-Blinky apparently-added. “I used to be Jim’s tutor remember?”

   Oh. Oh! Right, Steve had met him…one or two times. Still, he shook the hand that the man offered. “Right, sorry, I’ve had to deal with so many name and faces lately that I can’t remember anybody anymore.” Which was partly true.

   “Oh? How so?” Blinky inquired.

   “I’m planning a wedding actually,” he confessed, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. Eli paled a bit behind the counter. “Which is why I’m here, I need to order some flowers.”

   “I…I suppose that a congratulations is in order.” Eli mumbled. Now he _really_ wanted to get out of the shop. Who would have imagined that Steve would be getting married-well it happened to nearly everyone eventually. But still, the jerk that had picked on him for four years, getting married.

   “So who’s your fiancée?” Blinky asked excitedly.

   Oh, Blinky remembered Jim and Claire’s wedding, no one in high school could even imagine those two talking much less getting married but hey! Life had a funny way or working. And though he did not want to brag, he noted that if he had not helped Jim rehearse his lines for Romeo and Juliet than the two lovebirds might not be where they were now. Anyway, that wedding had been beautiful, not anything too loud or large but-

  “Oh god, it’s not for me! I don’t even-It’s for my mom!” Corrected Steve with a laugh.  The few relationships that he was had been in had not lasted long and were pretty hidden.

   “Wait your mom and _Lawrence_?” Eli confirmed. Steve nodded. “And you’re _not_ bursting into flames over it?”

   “I’m not in high school anymore Pepperjack, I’ve had time to mature.” Steve said with an eye roll.

   He _would_ have given some sort of smart ass reply when Blinky cut in. “Okay Elijah, I left Mr. Young on hold and I must get back to him to confirm his arrangement but I trust that you’ll be able to handle whatever it is that Steve needs.” And Eli, not wanting to argue with Blinky over petty things, nodded, leading to said person going back to the room from which he had appeared.

   “May I help you, sir?” Eli huffed, using a certain finger to push up his round spectacles which had begun to slip. Whether that was intentional or not could not be determined.

   Alright, pretending that you don’t know me huh? Fine. “I need some centrepieces for a wedding, please.” Let’s try first impressions again.

   The please caught him off guard. Why the hell had he snapped at Steve? Well he knew why but this was a professional business place, not the time for past feuds. “Oh. Um, what flowers would you like?”

   “I have no clue.” Steve admitted, somewhat embarrassed. “My mom didn’t give me any specifications, neither did Will, they aren’t picky about the pieces and just told me to get whatever looked nice but they don’t know that I have no clue what looks nice, much less what the hell I’m doing.”

   Eli chuckled, so their old gym teacher’s name was Will huh? “Alright, well besides the flowers that you see in the store, we have a catalogue that shows the-”

   “Give it up; no one wants to see the damn binder, Eli!” Natalie called, twirling a piece of her fiery hair around her finger absentmindedly.

   “I didn’t make the catalogue to never use it, Nat!” he called back. “As I was saying, the catalogue has the store’s flowers along with the basic bouquet and centrepiece options that we have, of course you can ask for something customized but choosing one of the basic ones just saves time.”

   “I might as well look at the catalogue since I have no clue what I’m doing.” Steve replied with a shrug. Also he might as well let Eli show off his work, he always enjoyed doing that in high school.

   Eli gave Natalie a look that clearly said ‘I told you so’ before ducking behind the counter and rummaging around for it, giving a triumphant “Found it!” upon locating it. Which lead to the two of them flipping through the pages for some time, it was obvious that Eli had put a lot of work into it; either that or he had too much free time. A combination of the two perhaps. But the photos of the flowers and arrangements were lovely, had he taken the photos himself? The written descriptions of each one seemed like something out of a science book, very Eli-ish.

   “What’s your favourite flower?” Steve asked as they looked. It should be a safe enough icebreaker.

   “It would be easier to choose a favourite star.” Eli sighed, as if he had asked himself the same thing a hundred times.

   “My favourite star would probably be the sun.” he joked, laughing when the other playfully punched him in the arm. But the answer that Eli had given, while not being what he would have expected, sounded nice actually, the way that he had said it. “Anyway, these look nice.” He added, pointing to a picture of some flowers in a vase.

   “Those would be white orchids, cream roses and white mums-chrysanthemums. A very lovely combination plus white chrysanthemums mean truth, loyal love-”

   “Eli for the last time, people chose flowers because they look pretty not because they mean whatever the frick frack they mean!” Natalie called. She had gone to the side wing to tend to the greenhouse but apparently had the hearing of a wolf.

   “I think the meaning is nice!” Steve called back. She didn’t answer so he counted it as his win.

   “Thanks.” Eli mumbled, cheeks a tad rosy. “And sorry, I just have a lot of information stuck in my head and no filter. I mean the older customers don’t mind it but I don’t want to waste your time.”

   “I don’t have anywhere else to be.” He replied with a shrug. “And of course you would have a bunch of flower facts in there.”

   “Not only facts.” Eli corrected with a grin. Steve gave a questioning hum. “Why couldn’t the florist plant any flowers?”

   “What?”

   “Eli, if you’re telling that fucking joke again I will slap you!” Natalie shouted from the greenhouse. (There were no customers around besides Steve so she’s allowed to say fuck.)

   “Tell it!” The other florist encouraged in a deep rumbling voice.

   “See!? Aargh likes it!” Eli shouted back at her. She groaned in response.

   Steve quirked an eyebrow at the unusual nickname of ‘Aargh’ then again there was somebody else named Blinky so not that odd in comparison. “I don’t know, why couldn’t the florist plant any flowers?”

   “Because he hadn’t botany!” he answered, the proudest damn smile on his face. Natalie groaned while Aargh laughed and Blinky yelled at them to keep it down.

   “…Nope, goodbye, I can handle the place being called ‘Don’t stop Beleafing-” Natalie gave another groan at that, cutting Steve off. “But that was uncalled for.” He proclaimed, even as he was choking back laughter.

   “It was brilliant and don’t you dare deny it, now are you sure that you want this arrangement? Some of these flowers are usually in season during the summer.”

   “Well the wedding’s in summer so that’s fine.” It was already nearing the end of spring.

   Silence. “…Steve when is the wedding?” Eli asked.

   “In about two months? Why?” Was he upset about not getting an invitation or something? Considering that he didn’t even know that he lived in Arcadia until a half hour ago (give or take).

   “Newbie flower buyer!” Natalie announced from the greenhouse leading to another yell from Blinky to keep it down. She never acted like this with the regulars but hey, Eli knew Steve-heck he used to study with him so it was her _job_ to embarrass the shit out of him.

   “Zip it!” Eli shouted back at her before taking a deep breath slowly. “The wedding is two months and you’re dealing with the flowers _now_?” he asked slowly, carefully as if he had not heard Steve correctly.

   “Yeah? Is that bad?”

   “It’s cutting it just a bit close.” Considering that Eli now had to call the usual place where they bought from since the greenhouse had no white orchids _or_ chrysanthemums _and_ he had to order vases, _plus_ Steve hadn’t even told him how many he wanted, and **who the hell starts ordering flowers so close**? Was he not aware how some flowers could be harder to find depending on the season?!

   “Oh I forgot about the bouquet.” Steve added, apparently missing Eli’s tone completely.

   Eli shot him an unamused look. ‘Nearly strangled a costumer to death’ would look bad on his resume right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forsythia means anticipation, you know like how y'all are anticipated to see when and how Eli and Steve are going to talk it through.   
> If you people are expected Eli to be all happy to see Steve (even if he does have the body of Captain America [And I should know cause I literally used Cap as a reference when I was drawing him XD]) then you guys are in for a rude awakening.   
> The real question is, what could Steve have done that would cause Eli's reaction?   
> Things start getting better in the next chapter, trust me. And again, sorry for this chapter being short (to me it is)   
> Oh and two months may seem like enough time to get flowers together but did y'all read all the things that Eli said? The flowers don't just magically appear people, there has to ordering, planning, organizing. I didn't know all this before I interviewed this florist.   
> Speaking of which, a huge thanks to Ancient nap dragon (ancientnapdragon) from Tumblr for asking the millions of questions that I had.   
> Let me know what y'all think!!! (But seriously, from the next chapter onward it S H O U L D pick up somewhat)


	3. Blue Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That being said the way that Eli was just smiling softly as he worked, tying the flowers off and making sure that no petals were damaged and what not…it made Steve’s stomach do an odd little flip. The kind of flip that he would get in high school during the tutoring sessions but would brush off as indigestion or something. The kind of flip that he had not felt in a long time and still didn’t know what to make of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not dead. (Sherlock reference by the way XD) MY MOUSE IS BROKEN SO I HAD TO HIJACK MY MOM'S COMPUTER! I AM SORRY THAT IT'S TAKEN SO LONG TO UPDATE THIS STUPID SHIT.  
> Who's ready for cringe? Cause this. Is. Cringe. Like aaaaaahhh bad cringe.  
> Here's a hint, how does a lunch outing involving these two dorks sound?

   God, why did people enjoy large weddings? Yeah, yeah, Steve knew that they were deemed romantic and stuff but god he wanted to murder the person who came up with having a huge ass wedding-or at least whoever had made it so damn complicated. But at the same time it made him look forward to it in a way? To see how all that work was going to pay off in the end. Sure, it was stressful and a pain in the ass and **_stressful_** but when he saw how excited his mom seem-hell when he saw how both she and Will would be talking about it and just look smitten with each other…It gave him a funny feeling. Not nausea like he used to but just…it was ridiculously sweet to watch how they interacted, just-that smile that they would give to each other or how they would just do the dorkiest things and-it just always made Steve smile.

   And at the same time it gave him a feeling of pure _want_. All of that dorky stuff that he did that he made fun of? He wanted that. Every single cringey bit. He just wanted to be able to look at someone with that smile and for them to look at him the same way. He wanted inside jokes and talks at three AM. He wanted someone that he could rant to at the end of a rough day. He wanted kisses and hugs for no reason, walks in the park, have conversations without having to say a word.

   Anyway…

   Back to the wedding planning which thus far had gone fairly smoothly except for last weeks’ flower incident. Eli…he had not seemed happy with how closely he had ordered the centrepieces and other things. Yes, Steve knew that he had procrastinated far too long for ordering them but he had had other things on his mind. Still, he felt guilty in a way. After all, Steve couldn’t keep a plant alive for more than a month so he could only imagine all the work that Eli has to put into tending a greenhouse _plus_ working out all of those different combinations. Just because he didn’t understand exactly how Eli’s job worked didn’t mean that he was just going to downplay it, Steve does maintenance for fuck’s sake, he knows all about what it’s like when someone downplays a job just because it doesn’t seem _that_ important.

    Oh my job isn’t that important? Good luck fixing that sink yourself then you hag. (Actually thought from Steve when one the tenants insulted his job.) Of course the fact that he worked in what was pretty much the only hotel in the town didn’t make it any easier. Arcadia wasn’t exactly the biggest tourist hotspot in the world.

   Thoughts of that aside, Steve was currently mailing save the date invitations because apparently everyone is just going to spontaneously forget about the oncoming wedding. God, but there was just so many _people_. Steve was fairly certain that he still hadn’t met all the members of Lawrence’s family even with all of the get-togethers that there had been.

    He crammed the rest of the invitations into the mail slot and would have been on his merry way if he didn’t happen to catch sight of the store that just so happened to be across the street. The fucking flower shop.

   While he didn’t mail things regularly Steve was flabbergasted as to how he had missed the shop, much less miss spotting Eli. But in his defence, Eli had changed _a lot_. Would…would it be awkward if he popped in to say hi or something?

    Steve wasn’t an idiot, he knew that he had fucked up majorly during high school but he had cleaned up his act near the end (probably due to the influence of Lawrence) and had barely bullied Eli the third year of school, ceasing it completely at their fourth year. So perhaps…perhaps there was a way to fix things? After all, Eli had tutored him in various subjects before during their third year-well before Steve’s friends had found out that is. Anyway, it was only natural that he would want to catch up right?

   Did Eli still enjoy talking about cryptids like he used to? Did he still write stories? What about those crazy theories that he used to think up? How the fuck does one talk to someone that one used to stuff into lockers and torment?

   Oh screw it, he quickly crossed the street (looking both ways first of course thank you very much) and was going to enter the shop when he caught sight of Eli. The raven haired man was putting together some sort of bouquet with mixed roses, yellow ones, pale ones with a slight blush, red, pink, and just looked so damn peaceful. The shop didn’t have any customers currently so he was probably preparing something for someone to pick up later.

    That being said the way that Eli was just smiling softly as he worked, tying the flowers off and making sure that no petals were damaged and what not…it made Steve’s stomach do an odd little flip. The kind of flip that he would get in high school during the tutoring sessions but would brush off as indigestion or something. The kind of flip that he had not felt in a long time and still didn’t know what to make of it.

   But the way that he was smiling as he worked, looking so at home…god, he looked…beaut-

    As if sensing his presence, Eli looked up from his work and offered him a wave accompanied by a bright smile and the weird feeling got worse. Embarrassed at being caught and now not being able to chicken out Steve took a deep breath and entered the shop. The air conditioning was a nice relief from the warm weather outside that announced summer’s approach.

   “Hey.” Steve greeted, returning the smile.

   “Hey,” Eli repeated. “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.” Not with how I almost bit your head off.

   “Neither did I but I was just mailing some stuff so uh yeah. Mail box is over there, shop is over here and stuff...” Smooth as wiping ones ass with a cactus. Why the hell had he come into the damn shop?

   “Oh.” They fell into an awkward silence after that as Eli continued to wrap up the bouquet, securing it with a large bow. Eli wanted to say something else but what could he say? Hey, sorry for getting on your case even though common logic should be ordering the flowers with more time? Hey, haven’t seen you since the last time you slammed me into a locker. Thanks for saying those things about me behind my back, _really_ helped me with all the other douches I had to deal with besides you. Wow, you look hot. Okay definitely cross out that last option. Eli could only thank whatever god there was that Natalie had the day off today so she didn’t have to see this whole mess.

   Luckily before the silence got too suffocating Aargh stepped out from the greenhouse and gave him a wave. “Hi, Steve!” he rumbled.

    “Hi…Aargh right?” he asked. While he couldn’t remember names very well, Steve could remember faces. Not that Aargh’s size or green hair would be easy to forget.

   “Yup!” Aargh confirmed. “Need any flowers?” he questioned, gesturing to the various plants.

   “No-but thank you.” Steve replied quickly. “I came here for-” What had he come here for? Yes he had been meaning to speak with Eli, clear the air a bit but that surely couldn’t be the only reason why he would come into the shop right?

   “Eli! I forbid you from working through your lunch hour again!” Blinky proclaimed, coming out of his office.

    Oh great, anybody else want to come out here? Let’s just get everyone out here why don’t we. “Hello, mister Blinky.” Steve said instead. Why couldn’t he find what he wanted to say?

   “I was just finishing up this arrangement!” Eli protested. The look that Blinky gave him clearly said ‘I call bullshit’. “It’s not like have anywhere to be.” He huffed, leaning back against the counter.

   “Do you want to get coffee?” Steve blurted. Why the hell had he done that? He didn’t particularly care for coffee anyway. But as he recalled Eli loved it, still did apparently if the way that his expression briefly perked up for a second was anything to go by.

   “And now you have somewhere to be, shoo!” Blinky said, making shooing motions at Eli who chuckled and went to hang his apron at the hook by the door. Blinky mouthed a quick ‘Thanks’ to Steve who waved it off as no big deal.

   Once the apron was off Eli just sported a plain white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a pair of dark blue jeans and sneakers-were those sneakers? Nothing too fancy but for some reason it made Steve very self-conscious of his own plain grey t-shirt and tan cargo pants. His work boots were caked in mud that he never bothered to clean off and had long since dried.

   “You don’t have offer me coffee just to get Blinky to get me out of the shop.” Eli said with an eye roll once they exited the store.

  “I call bullshit on that. Plus the least I could do after dropping that huge order so close to the deadline is buy you a coffee.” Steve said nonchalantly.

  “…Fine, but I’m buying my own lunch.” He relented.

  “Fair enough. So do you know any good places to get coffee around here?”

   As it just so happened, he did.

 

      They ended up in a nice little café at the end of the street, it didn’t look very flashy or anything but when Steve opened the door for Eli he could already smell the heavenly scent of fresh made roast. Eli mumbled a thanks and walked through the open door, head down. Steve frowned a bit but followed behind him, looking around at the place. It was pretty quaint; the walls were painted in various murals, different places in the town showcasing different scenes. A young couple walking through the park, another showing pigeons flying past the museum, a couple of girls talking over a coffee, a field of flowers, it was almost like all the different artworks were forming a collage.

   “I’ve never been here before.” Steve commented, trying to get some sort of conversation going.

   “I usually go here before work, sometimes after too; hell I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a third of my pay winds up here.” Eli admitted, feeling a bit more at ease in the familiarity of the café. A bit being the key words.

   Why had he agreed to this? His whole life had pretty much been about avoiding Steve, in high school, when he had moved away, when he had come back, even when he had shown up at the place that he worked Eli had been hoping that it had just been some sort of sick coincidence. And now he had actually agreed to get a coffee with him?

   Eli was not one to judge people before getting to know them, but when he _had_ known Steve it had not been the best experience in the world. But then again Steve was acting nicer. Oh god what if it was a joke? After all, Steve had acted nicer to him before, once upon a time, when Eli had tutored him. But then Steve’s friends had found them in the library-they had found them and-

   A hand grabbed his shoulder, shaking him slightly and for a second Eli thought that he was going to get thrown against something. He let out a yelp and jumped back.

   Steve gave him a confused but slightly concerned look. “Are you alright? I was asking you what you wanted to eat and you kind of blanked on me.” Not just blanked, Eli looked as if he had seen a ghost or something.

   “Y-yeah, I’m fine.” He replied, forcing a smile onto his face. Calm down, that was then, this is now, now…now Steve genuinely seemed concerned, genuinely appeared to want to spend time with him for a bit. So had he back then-Eli waved that thought away.

    At least the café was basically empty but Eli could feel the other people in there watching him-watching them. He mentally shook his head and went up to the front counter since there was no line, Steve followed suit. “They make killer turkey pitas here.” Eli advised.

   “Guess I’ll try that then.”  Steve shrugged.

   A barista came out from seemingly out of nowhere and gave a huge grin upon seeing Eli. “Hey Eli! I don’t think I’ve seen you since-” he checked his wrist where no watch was. “five hours ago, that’s a new record.”

   “Aw, admit it; I’m your favourite customer if for no other reason than how much I spend here helps your pay checks.” Eli beamed.

   “That and you’re not as bitchy as half of the ones I get on my morning shift.” He agreed with a sigh warily, before putting on a mischievous grin. “But if you come around here any more often my Nomura’s going to start thinking that you’re here for more than coffee.”

   “Oh you’d only be so lucky!” Eli laughed, having heard that joke a million times. “And she’d be able to slice me finer than a butcher could, we both know that.”

   “Yeah, she would be.” He sighed dreamily before noticing Steve who had no clue what to make of the conversation in front of him. “Oh and it looks like you’ve brought a friend.” He teased.

   “Old colleague,” Eli corrected. “Draal, Steve, Steve this is Draal.”

    Draal’s eyes widened for half a second, looking at Steve before glancing over to Eli who just gave a shrug in response. “Uh, nice to meet you.” Draal said, offering his large hand to the other over the counter.

   “Likewise.” Steve said politely, shaking the man’s hand even as it squeezed his just a tad too tightly to just be labelled as a firm handshake.

   The man had hair so blonde that it was practically white which contrasted greatly against his nutmeg skin and sharp brown-red eyes, he had a large frame, barrel chested and he obviously went to the gym regularly. Celtic looking tattoos painted both of his arms-well one of his arms at least, his uniform had short sleeves so the way that one arm ended and a prosthetic began was obvious but the prosthetic had been tattooed over as well somehow.

   “Steve offered to get me some coffee as a way to make up for dropping a shitload of work on my lap.” Eli clarified to Draal who still had no idea what to make of the situation. After all, Draal had known Eli for a while and between some nights out for drinks he had heard more than a few things about Steve. Said person gave an apologetic wince. Eli didn’t care if what he had said caused Steve to feel some guilt.

   “I’m guessing that you want the usual Columbian roast with one shot of cream and almond syrup, am I right?”

  “I could be having hazelnut syrup instead.” Eli protested.

  “You had hazelnut this morning and you never repeat flavours in the same day and whenever you come here in the afternoon you _always_ get almond.” Draal pointed out matter of factly.

   “Fine, I’ll have the damn almond.” He muttered, crossing his arms stubbornly cause Steve to chuckle.

   “What about you?” Draal asked. There weren’t any other customers in line, no need to rush since they had gotten there after the big lunch swarm.

   “Uh I’ll have a…” Fuck he didn’t have time to make sense of all of the different combos that were written in chalk on the menu behind the barista. “A latte. You said that you wanted a pita right?”

   “Yeah, but I’m paying for it.” Eli reminded.

   “It’s fine, I can get it.”  Steve insisted.

   “Well I got a card for this place and I could use the points.” He said, going to get his wallet out of his pocket. Except it wasn’t there. Shit. He patted down his pockets, front and back, trying to find it. No dice. Had he left it in his apron _again_?!

   “I think this is the universe’s way of saying ‘Let Steve pay for the damn lunch’.” Draal chimed in. Eli glared at him. Of all the days that he could have forgotten his wallet.

   “Hey, it’s fine, I got it.” Steve said as Eli still searched his pockets for his wallet. “Don’t worry about it.”

   “Only time that this is happening.” Eli mumbled, finally ceasing his searching and crossed his arms once more, although this time it was more like he hugging himself. God he had to look like such a spazz. “Turkey, please.” He looked to the side. Why did the universe hate him so?

   “Two of those please.” Steve told Draal.

 

   Once they got their order they moved to a table by large picture window. Eli absentmindedly stirred his coffee while he looked out the window. So far so good at least. Yeah, he could survive the short amount of time that it would take to eat his lunch and get back to the shop. He took a sip of the coffee and sighed, lips quirking into a soft smile, perfect as always.

   “So,” Steve began once Eli set his cup down. “What’s the story with Draal? And Blinky and Aargh for that matter. The names sure are unique.”

   Eli’s immediate reply would have been ‘Why don’t you ask them yourself?’ but stopped when he realized that Steve was just trying to start a conversation. But he also didn’t want to give information that was too personal-like the story behind Draal’s arm for example. So instead he answered. “Well, we actually do this thing at the end of the month where we go out for drinks and whatnot, you could tag along? Get to know them better.” Basically a kinder version of ‘why don’t you ask them yourself?’.

   Never had Eli ever hated his good manners more. If he was lucky then Steve would just say that he was busy or something. The invitation had been like when you offer part of your snack to a friend-sure you’re offering but you secretly wish that they say no.

   “Ah, don’t know if I’ll be free.” Steve said apologetically. “With the wedding and all that.” Plus with how awkward going could turn out to be.

   “Alright.” Eli shrugged, going back to drinking his coffee; he would get to his pita eventually, preferably when his mouth wasn’t dryer than a tumbleweed.

   “So what about you?”  he asked.

   “What about me?” Eli asked, genuinely confused. 

   “What do you have going on? I haven’t seen you in _years_ Pepperjack; I’m bound to be a little curious.”

   “It’ll just bore you.” He declined.

   “Okay then, I’ll start. Uh, I’m working as a handyman in a hotel, which is not a glamorous as it sounds. I have my own place now which is great, and oh yeah and I’m an idiot who cannot order flowers properly.”

   Eli snorted on his coffee, quickly grabbing a napkin and wiping his mouth before any dripped onto his shirt. He shouldn’t have found it _that_ funny but he did. Steve grinned in victory and laughed as Eli cleaned himself. He shot him a glare that he didn’t mean before smiling. “Alright you win, I work in a flower shop-obviously, I didn’t think that I would, I just expected to work there for a little bit to earn some money but…”

    He smiled down at his cup of coffee. “I ended up liking it, a lot, it’s a pain in the ass, don’t get me wrong, I have to be up at ungodly hours, some customers are douches and I got so many cuts at the beginning because believe it or not but leaves can cut you like a paper cut except the devil comes up to rub salt in the wound for you but I don’t know, I just feel at home there.”

    Steve smiled fondly at him as he listened and had to laugh at how vividly Eli explained his job. “While we’re on the job subject, want to know a secret?”

   “You’re not really a handyman and you’re secretly an FBI or CIA agent.” Eli said automatically.

   “Okay, that answers the question as to whether or not you still do those theories.” He laughed, shaking his head. Eli smiled in return “But no, the secret is actually kind of embarrassing, I don’t want Lawrence to know yet. I applied for a job at Arcadia Oaks High.”

   Eli’s eyes widened, wait did Steve seriously apply for the job that he thought that he had?

    Steve’s grin widened at the look on the other’s face and he nodded vigorously. “Yep! You are looking at the new gym teacher starting September!” He exclaimed. “Well assistant gym teacher but still!”

   He was silent for a moment but burst out laughing a second after. Even though Steve wasn’t sure how he felt about Eli laughing at him, Steve did know that he liked the sound of his laughter, warm and bright just like him. “I’m sorry,” Eli apologized in between chuckles. “It’s just that I can only _imagine_ what Lawre-what Will’s face is going to look like when you tell him!” 

   “Maybe I should film it when I do.” He chuckled. “But yeah, I imagine that he’ll be pretty stoked about it, I mean, he’s influenced me a lot-in good ways- and I don’t think that I wouldn’t have figured out that I want to do this otherwise.”

   “You really have changed.” Eli said quietly, tracing the rim of his cup.

   “What?”

   “Nothing.” He smiled a bit. “Just that I’m happy for you.”

   “Thanks.” Steve replied, returning the smile.

   “And I’m demanding a copy of that tape.” Eli added.

 

   Eli’s lunch hour-which usually took fifteen minutes or less-actually took the full hour as the name implied-maybe even a bit over an hour. They talked about different things, more about Steve’s job and what he was most looking forward too about it, what were Eli’s favourite parts about his own job, different adventures that they’d been on over the years. Eli talked about what it was like when he had been staying with his sister, Gwen, when he had been in college and showed Steve some pictures of his two year old niece, Abby; excitedly talking about how she seemed to be showing an interest in stars. They talked about the wedding, hobbies, joking and laughing and catching up as much as two people could in the span of sixty some minutes.

   No, Eli had not forgotten about how Steve had treated him in high school but he pushed it to the back of his mind and allowed this Steve-the current one- to leave his impression. They lost track of time completely and it was Draal who had to go over and inform Eli that his lunch hour had ended.

   “Shit!” Eli gasped, looking at the time on his watch before jumping out of his seat and gathering the trash to throw away. Steve helped him of course.

   He would have dashed out the door but Steve halted him by offering “Let me walk you there, that way Blinky at least knows who made you be late.”

   “Oh my gosh seriously? Thank you.” He sighed in relief, calming down a touch. But come on! He hadn’t been late since his first day on the job when he didn’t realize just how early his work started.

   “No problem.”

   “See you later, Eli, it was nice to fin-to meet you Steve.” Draal said, catching himself before he let the ‘finally’ slip out.

   “Bye Draal!” Eli called, still in a rush somewhat to go.

  “Nice too meet you too.” Steve said again and followed the other out the door while Draal just worried that Eli knew what the hell he was getting himself into. He had always known Eli to be kind (if not soft) hearted but he had never seen two people who had not seen each other in so long talk and get along so well. It seemed all the more impossible when you threw in their history.

   Draal sincerely hoped that Eli knew what he was doing.

  

   “I’m so sorry that I’m late mister Blinky!” Eli exclaimed as soon as he entered the shop, already grabbing his apron off the hook and retying it, fumbling with the straps that he couldn’t see.

   “I got it.” Steve said, batting Eli’s fumbling hands away and tying the apron strings for him. Eli mumbled another thanks, this one sounding different somehow.

   “It’s perfectly alright Elijah, I’m just glad that you had an actual lunch hour today.” Blinky reassured. “Besides, Aargh still isn’t back yet either.”

   Aargh had a habit of accidentally being late after lunch since he would always have lunch in the park and get distracted over the simplest of things, whether it be a butterfly or just a really interesting looking tree that he had not noticed before. He loved spending his time outside even though he burned scarily easily. But Blinky got sunburns fairly easily as well, which on occasions led Eli to wonder why the fuck those two had become florists in the first place. Ah, well.

   “I should get going; you’re not the only one due at work.” Steve said as he finished up tying the apron, stepping away from the other.

   “Ah, hold on! Please.” Eli cut in; surprising himself with his outbursts but he quickly shook it off. “Since you bought me lunch, let me pay you back for that.”

   “I told you already, it’s fine.” He insisted, waving it off.

   “Well…just-” his eyes caught the bouquet behind the counter that he had been working on before he had left for lunch and picked one out. “Here.” Eli said quickly, handing the lone flower out to him.

   Steve swallowed a laugh that threatened burst out, a few giggles still escaped however. He didn’t _mean_ to laugh but it was just so damn dorky. The flower looked like so fucking small and fragile but was lovely nonetheless. “So what’s this one called?”

   “A blue iris, they bloom in the spring and are pretty fragrant, some people compare the smell to a grape soda for some reason.” He replied, giving a bit of information while he was at it.

   “Any meaning to this one?” Steve asked, smiling.

   “Not that I can remember.” he replied with a shrug.

   “Mm, well thank you. That uh, the lunch it was fun, we should do it again sometime?” he offered.

   “Yeah, we should.” Eli agreed with a warm smile. He hesitated but grabbed a pen that he always kept in the pocket of his apron and grabbed a piece of paper next to the register, jotting down some digits before handing it to Steve. “Since I’m not always in the shop.”

    Steve accepted the paper and looked it over a few times before his brain kicked in somewhat, reminding him that he had work. “Thanks, um well, I’ll just,” he pointed to the door. “go, see you later, Pepperjack. Bye Blinky.”

   “Eli.” He corrected. “You don’t need to go by last names.”

    “Right, yeah, catch you later, Eli.” Steve said, exiting the shop, smiling down at a slip of paper and a blue iris in his hand. Eli didn’t catch the semi hidden smile because he was too busy grinning down at the floor. Blinky caught it however; he caught both of the smiles.

 

    Work. Had. Been. A. Bitch.

   First this one tenant clogged the sink with some godawful recipe she had been trying to make and then dispose of when it didn’t turn out right before denying doing _anything_ to cause what could be labelled as a biohazard in the sink pipes. Then one of the children of this other couple had shattered part of the faux chandelier in the suite (Steve always found that they looked tacky anyway [the chandelier not the children]). Not to mention how this one lady with a dog (not a service dog) showed exactly why there was a no dog’s allowed rule by-let’s just say it was gross. That last one seemed more fitting for one of the cleaning ladies but since it transpired in the lobby and not in an actual room, responsibility automatically feel to him. And numerous smaller tasks sprinkled in between like sprinkles made of glass on a lovely shit sundae.

    When one is in high school they are lead to believe that working is the hardest part of work. Nope. It is about twenty percent work, fifty percent trying to resist the urge to snap (or bitch slap in some cases) at a client, the blissful five percent were something happens that actually makes one appreciate their job for much, another five percent getting one’s watch, and twenty percent thinking ‘maybe I’ll just get a spontaneous heart attack’.

   Or maybe Steve was just basing those percentages on the type of day that he’d had. How the hell was he doing math right now? He was beat. But his mother had sent him a text as he was getting out of work about how she had made a pie so of course he had to stop by to have some.

   Riding his motorcycle always took some of the stress off him after a long day of work and today the rumble of the engine as he drove down the smooth asphalt road was much appreciated. And combined with how the sun was setting? Pure heaven.

   He parked the motorcycle in the familiar driveway, while he now had his own place he obviously visited, and took off his helmet, setting it atop the vehicle before entering the house, using his spare key to unlock the door. Oh yeah, his mom had definitely been baking.

   “I’m here!” Steve yelled, not bothering to kick off his shoes like he would during other visits since he didn’t plan on being there long.

   “Hi Steve,” Will greeted, exiting from the kitchen, drying his hands on his pants. He had obviously been doing dishes. “Are you here for an actual visit or did Susan happen to tell you that she made pie? She’s washing up real quick; she’ll be out in a minute.”

   “I visited yesterday and I deserve some pie.” He defended.

   “Rough day at work?” he asked, going back to the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge before handing Steve a beer-root beer of course since he was driving.

   Steve nodded, making his way to the kitchen behind him sitting down on one of the chairs. He opened it and took a small sip before answering; he didn’t plan on drinking much. “Children are terrible and so are dogs-when they vomit at least. Was that vomit? I don’t even know.”

   “This is why I say that you should find a different job, or at least tell them to take ‘vomit and other bodily fluids’ out of your contract.”

   Once again Steve nodded, he was almost tempted to tell him about the new job that he would have come august but he wanted to keep it a surprise, plus he had promised a video to Eli. The thought made him smile down at the flower which he had tucked in the front pocket of his shirt since he had not had a better place to put it.

   “That’s a nice flower,” Will complimented, noticing it. “it’s not  an orchid though right?” he didn’t have much knowledge on what different flowers looked like. Well he could tell the difference between a rose and a daisy but that was about it, one of the reasons why Steve had flower duty.

   “No, it’s an iris.” Steve replied. “Why can’t it be an orchid?”

   “I’m allergic to orchids, remember?”

   Steve choked on his drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY TO CLEAR SOME SHIT UP, ELI HAS NEITHER FORGOTTEN NOR FORGIVEN STEVE FOR THE BULLSHIT HE PULLED IN HIGHSCHOOL BUT ELI IS A PURE BEAN WHO GIVES SECOND CHANCES AND WHILE HE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN HE PUT THAT SHIT TO THE SIDE FOR LUNCH. Just clarifying in case there was confusion. Oh and in case y'all forgot, the flower arrangement that Steve chose consists of white chrysanthemums, cream roses and white orchids. You know orchids, like Will (Lawrence) is allergic to? :)  
> That being said...prepare for a shit storm next chapter.  
> This chapter was not as detailed as I had hoped near the end but I can always go back to fix it now that it's uploaded.  
> Blue Iris means 'Forgive me' or 'I'm sorry' Basically Eli's way of saying sorry for snapping at him/judging him prematurely. He was bullshiting about not knowing the meaning to it because the boy's head is a fucking encyclopedia.


	4. Rose Leaf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli had just been caught in it all, and when he saw-when he thought that Steve had changed, he had let himself get swept up in lies and false promises again. Just a façade, a charade so Steve could get what he wanted, or perhaps it had been to ease his own guilty conscious. And why couldn’t Steve have called the fucking flower shop instead of his personal number for Merlin’s sake? Make it Blinky’s problem and not his? Or did Steve just get off on fucking shit up for him?  
> Perhaps that was it, perhaps now that he had his favourite loser back he wanted to have some fun. Whatever the motive was, ulterior or not, Eli was fuming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LOOK, THE STORY THAT NO ONE WANTS TO READ HAS RETURNED!!! (Oh look, the salty author is back too)   
> Procrastination, lack of a working mouse, and school is to blame for this chapter taking so long to write.   
> And look! Here's the short background on Human Draal that no one asked for but I said that I was going to include anyway!  
> >Draal works at the coffee shop (as we've already read), he was a soldier like his dad used to be, lost his arm and worked at the flower shop for a bit to get and a much needed change of pace to try and readjust. Then he went on a trip (basically a reference to how he got under the control of Gunmar and fucked off, but you know, not as messed up), came back and settled for working at the Coffee shop. Draal is dating Nomura.  
> That being said...who's ready for some pain? :) (OH AND WHO SAW THE TROLLHUNTERS TRAILER? LIKE TO ME IT GIVES OFF THE FEELING THAT THIS SEASON IS GOING TO BE THE INFINITY WAR OF THE TROLLHUNTERS UNIVERSE!)

   Eli pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, trying to not smash the phone against the fucking wall. It was not an easy task.

   It was Sunday and his day off and he did not want to deal with the utter _bullcrap_ that Steve had the nerve to tell him. How the hell could he forget that Lawrence was allergic to orchids? Eli always told any of the clients the flowers that each bouquet or arrangement included to prevent such incidents from occurring. Then again this was the man who had ordered flowers two months before a wedding.

   But honestly, Eli had spent the past week checking with the place that he usually bought the flowers from if there would be any of the types of flowers that he needed growing at that time to try and see if he could get them to reserve them, not to mention looking to see where he could find the vases that the centrepieces would need. And then Steve calls him up explaining how he needed to change the flowers. He had not been thinking of this situation happening when he had given Steve his number-then again had he really been thinking at all if he gave him the number?

    Apparently not.

   Eli had just been caught in it all, and when he saw-when he _thought_ that Steve had changed, he had let himself get swept up in lies and false promises again. Just a façade, a charade so Steve could get what he wanted, or perhaps it had been to ease his own guilty conscious. And why couldn’t Steve have called the fucking flower shop instead of his personal number for Merlin’s sake? Make it Blinky’s problem and not his? Or did Steve just get off on fucking shit up for him?

   Perhaps that was it, perhaps now that he had his favourite loser back he wanted to have some fun. Whatever the motive was, ulterior or not, Eli was fuming.

   He wasn’t just angry about the flowers, oh no, now everything, _everything,_ all of those four years of hell were bubbling up to the surface. _Everything._ But Eli was a professional, he could push it down. Yeah, push it down for now and let it out during a nice kick boxing session later. Good plan, Elijah, good plan.

    But god, he wanted to end this phone call as soon as possible so he could get on with his day, with his _life_. Who was he kidding? Steve and him? Just patching all that shit over with lunch? That was like trying to fix a dam with spit. However, deep down, Eli knew who he had been trying to fool.

   No one but himself-as usual.

   He had been trying to fool himself into the whole ‘second chances’ stuff, he had been trying to _believe_ clinging onto false hope that Steve really had changed, because he had once, for however briefly that had been. Those short four-no had it had been about five?-five months of study sessions, where for a time, it had actually seemed…it had…it had almost been like Steve valued him-cared for him-and not just as a tutor-but as a friend. Ha! Friend, Eli wanted to laugh at the word, as if Steve would even consider such a thing.

   Eli had to stop thinking; he was going too far back into his thoughts, pushing himself closer to the edge of the cliff where his emotions (specifically his temper) were precariously balanced. Each memory-each was another shove, pushing him, closer, closer, closer to the edge. Edge of what? Just hanging up the damn call?

   “Pep-Eli you okay there? You haven’t really said anything.” Steve’s voice came through the phone.

   “Yes,” he forced himself to say. “I’m fine, just thinking of what other arrangement options there are, I was thinking of the one with the different coloured chrysanthemums.”

   “Oh, okay. Listen I’m sorry for doing this.” He apologized.

   Eli shouldn’t have said what he did after that but he couldn’t stop himself from gritting out. “Well, at least you have the balls to apologize for _something_.” He felt himself teetering on the edge and would have hung up the call when the damn bastard had the audacity to ask

   “What do you mean by that? What’s _something_?”

   He didn’t fall over the edge, no, he fucking crashed, jumped, swan dived. “ **Are you kidding me**?!” he shouted, screw his stupid professionality!

   “Why-!”

   “I swear to shit, Palchuk, if you dare to ask me why I’m upset you’re even denser than you already seem! Now you apologize for something?! **Now**?! Over a stupid flower order?! No, of course you couldn’t apologize for shoving me into lockers, for beating me up, for doing all those things to me every damn day of high school, but yes, be my guest Steve and apologize for a **flower order**!”

   “I stopped-!”

  “You stopped when you needed something out of me! When you needed those stupid tutoring lessons!” The words were spilling out of Eli now like an overflowing sink. Maybe it was because the conversation was transpiring over the phone. Maybe it was because of all those _years_ of keeping quiet and now that he was letting it out he couldn’t stop. And he wasn’t trying to.

   “And your oh so precious friends found out and to cover your own ass you made up those awful rumours about me! So yeah, Steve, you stopped, but you also made things worse! Did you even realize that?! Or did you think that you were the only one who would _ever_ get on my case?!”

    “And another thing what the _hell made_ you think that saying those things were okay!? For what, the sake that they wouldn’t know that you had _me_ as a tutor?! Are you kidding me?! Do you have any idea what they did-!” Eli’s voice cracked at the end of his shout, his throat was thick with emotion.

   “Eli-”

   He wasn’t done. “I tried to be professional, to not bring up this shit but what the hell, Palchuk!? What in the actual hell?! Terrified. I was terrified of just walking down the hall back then, I was terrified when you walked into that flower shop, but then I thought to myself ‘maybe he’s changed’ ‘maybe he’s not such a huge dick anymore’ so I ignored everything that happened, ignored the fact that you couldn’t even be bothered to apologize. And it worked, it wasn’t horrible and we actually talked and I thought-I really thought-”

   “You’ll get your damn flowers alright? I’ll tell Blinky to handle it.” And with that he hung up the call. He had to remind himself that he couldn’t buy a new phone with how much he wanted to throw the cursed thing against a wall.

   Was he breathing? Eli couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not? Calm down, he willed himself, calm down. Oh god what if Steve was pissed? So pissed that he went to Blinky and he ended up losing his job? Why the hell had he done that? What had come over him? Eli could feel himself spiralling deeper into that abbess of darkness that he hated falling into. He could feel himself shaking, he tried not to but it wouldn’t stop. He squeezed his eyes shut and set his jaw, breathing heavily through his nose. He reopened his eyes and with trembling fingers he clutched the phone and dialled up a familiar number, waiting anxiously as it rang.

   Four agonizing rings later, the person on the other end of the line picked up.

   “Hey Eli, how are you? You haven’t called in forever.” A cheery voice came through the other end.

   “Gwen,” he hated how choked his voice came out. “I think I messed up.”

   “What happened and who do I have to kill?” she asked. Gwen, his older sister by seven years, sounded dead serious. And despite everything that seemed to be crashing down on him, Eli had to give a teary laugh at that.

  

    Two weeks later and Eli still had his job, somehow. Either Steve hadn’t said anything to Blinky or Blinky was even more of a saint than he seemed. Eli wasn’t going to push his luck by asking. Speaking of luck, he didn’t know whether or not this was lucky but he hadn’t seen Steve-or heard from for that matter. Yes, Blinky had informed him of the flower change with his never ending amount of patience but other than that he hadn’t heard of the man; Steve hadn’t even stopped by the flower shop since.

   Why would he anyway? It’s not as if Steve needed anything from the shop, he had already ordered his flowers. What had Eli been expecting him to do? Apologize? As if. He hadn’t done so before, he wasn’t going to now.

   But still, that whole coffee outing, it had given him so hope-ha! Hope? No such thing, at least when it came to him and Steve getting along, no, matter how much Eli wanted that to happen. Yes, after everything, _everything_ that had happened, he still craved for that. After all, when it had happened in high school for those few months…no, they were grown up now. There were no shared classes or lunch hours or one of them failing a class to hold them together.

   No, he couldn’t keep thinking of these things, Draal had already noticed and asked if something was wrong, Eli had waved it off as nothing. It’s nothing, he kept repeating to himself, trying to force himself to believe it. Ugh! What was he even getting so worked up over damn it!? God! Whatever thoughts he had relating to Steve, what did they even matter anymore?! That was over! Done before it even began!

   “Elijah?” Blinky asked cautiously, making said person jump, pulling himself out of his thoughts.

   “Yes, Blinky?” Eli replied. He felt tired, not ‘oh I didn’t get much sleep’ tired, more like ‘I am done with everything’ tired.

   “It’s already closing time.” He informed him. He had of course noticed that Eli had been spacing out more during work but Blinky trusted him, if anything serious was happening that Blinky needed to know about then he knew that Eli would tell him. If Eli didn’t want to talk about, well then that just meant that whatever was causing his distraction was his business.

   “Right, sorry, I spaced out.” Eli apologized, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

   “It’s alright, I’ll lock up. Have a good evening, Eli.”

   Somehow, he didn’t think that was going to be possible.

 

   It’s been two weeks Palchuk, two fucking weeks, you got this. Steve’s mind tried to convince him, hell, he’s been trying to convince himself to do this since Eli first hung up on him. Although Steve didn’t particularly blame him for ending the call. Who was he blaming? He got the answer every time he looked in the fucking mirror.

   Steve knew that he was stupid, but he never thought himself to be such an idiot. God, how does someone just _forget_ doing something like that to someone else? What the hell was wrong with him? Had he just not thought that what he said would be taken seriously? Had he not seen the after effects that his words had-scratch that, he had certainly seen them now. God. There was no fixing this shit. Stop saying that! You’re just saying that so you have an excuse to chicken out!

    Yeah, in front of a person’s doorstep…it wasn’t an ideal location for him to be mentally arguing with himself. (Well not a person’s- we all know who’s doorstep he’s on.) Besides, the coffee that he had brought was going to get cold. He had gone through an awkward five plus minutes of Draal’s death glare and that mess of asking Blinky for directions to Eli’s house, no way was he not doing this now.

   “Ah…fuck.”

   No, that was not Steve who had said that, because said person was currently blinking and making sure that he had heard right. After all that had been barely audible.

   “Fuck-just-ngh!” A voice-unmistakably Eli-panted.

    Okay nope! Nope, nope, hell to the no! Abort mission, fucking abort! While Steve didn’t have fucking x-ray vision to see exactly what was going on he had heard enough. And he was on the other side of the door for Pete’s sake!

   So Steve turned to run his ass to the motorcycle, at least that had been the plan before a pair of glowing yellow eyes peered at him through the bush next to the front door. Now, Steve was a grown man so he reacted to the glowing mystery eyes accordingly. He practically shrieked before falling back against the door, it thudded heavily behind him. The eyes blinked slowly, fixated on him.

   The door swung open a “Who’s there?” dying on Eli’s lips as Steve let out another shout-falling through the open doorway. The kicker? Steve spilled the coffee on himself, letting out a string of violent curses before looking up at Eli and shouting “There’s a monster in the mini-tree-bush! In the bush!”

   A hairless cat leapt out from the bush as if on cue, meowing ever so innocently.

   “Aw, Goblin! I didn’t forget to let you inside after I came home from work did I?!” Eli gasped, picking up the feline who immediately nuzzled against his face. He looked back down at Steve. “And your knowledge of botany, or rather lack thereof, never fails to surprise me.” He said dryly.

   Oh sure, talk nicely to the stupid creepy ass Golum wannabe, Steve mentally deadpanned before he took in Eli’s attire; on old t-shirt with a faded green alien drawing on it, sweatpants, large headphones around his neck, those wraps that boxers used-oh he had been doing _exercise_!- anyway, working his way up to his face, upside down from his current angle but still, easy enough to tell that he didn’t have his glasses on, his hair was in a messy ponytail, he was sweaty as hell.

error_Steve.exe has crashed. “I brought you a coffee.” Once again, his suave moves to the rescue.(ha! As if!)

   “I can see that.” He said while Goblin, Eli’s little avenger, gave him a meow that clearly translated to ‘I demand food peasant!’ “I need to feed my cat so can you maybe um, get out of my doorway?”

    Oh, so that thing was a cat. Alright. “I actually came by here to talk; the coffee was mostly so you wouldn’t send me off right away.”

   “You can talk to Blinky about the flowers; your order is already filed.” He was either glaring at him or squinting because he couldn’t see jack shit without his glasses, Steve couldn’t tell which.  

   “I don’t need to talk about the flowers.” Oh lord, this was going downhill pretty smoothly, like seriously, a friction free ride to him making a fool out of himself.

   “Then why-?”

   I came to talk to you! About you!” Steve blurted. “I’ve practiced this stupid thing a million times so I wouldn’t screw up my fucking apology!”

   “…” There was a moment of shared silence that seemed to last forever; even Goblin ceased their infernal meows. Meanwhile Eli’s brain suggested the most godawful idea in the history of godawful ideas. No, no way, say no (cue Hamilton ‘Say no to this’ No?...I’ll just show myself out then) “You’re not apologizing on the floor of my doorway so get up and get in here before I change my mind.” Fuck.

   Well…shit. Steve had been fully prepared to apologize at the front door but actually going _into_ Eli’s house? Nope, abort mission! But, he had said that he was going to do this, no excuses. He would say one thing though; he would never need a vacation again with how he was being treated to this massive guilt trip. Ha!

    He got up from the floor with a coffee soaked shirt and the rest of his dignity and gave Eli the now empty cup while simultaneously trying to ignore the wrinkly animal before entering the house. It was…actually almost exactly what he would picture Elijah’s house to appear like.

    It wasn’t overly large, one story, three rooms as far as he could tell, not including the kitchen and the living room. Carpeted floor-which Steve had never known to be such a bitch to clean before he worked at the hotel and he was now silently praying that he had not spilled coffee onto it. Anyway, aside from that there was a large bookshelf in the living room, and Steve would bet that at least half of those had something to do with either conspiracy theories or cryptids. Another shelf with numerous knickknacks, a TV on the wall and a large sofa-bed-thingy across from it. The whole place was surprisingly clean and well organized.

    There were a few things that he wouldn’t have expected however, a poster with a skull design, a guitar in the corner of the living room, another poster featuring socks for some reason, and a few other out of place things here and there.

    “I would offer you a coffee of something but,” Eli gestured to Steve’s shirt. “I think you’ve had enough.” He said, going to one of the rooms, opening it and emerging a few seconds later, now wearing his glasses.

   “Oh har de har har.” Steve rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you have a ‘cat’ to feed?” he pointed to what Eli considered a feline.

   “Didn’t you have an apologize to give?” he reminded, quirking an eyebrow before turning on his heel and going to the kitchen, still carrying the cat and setting her on the floor before getting the cat food from one of the overhead shelves.

   Steve awkwardly followed him to the kitchen. Well, he did have a point. Eli undid his ponytail and pushed the messy hair away from his face with one hand and fanning himself with his t-shirt which was trying to cling to his sweaty frame. Steve’s mouth went dry. Forget Steve.exe crashing, more like Steve.exe was now crashed, gone, no reboot could possibly repair him.

   “So do your neighbours ever wonder what you could possibly be doing over here?” Steve brilliantly (not) asked, referring to the noises which had lead him to that misunderstanding at the doorstep.

   “What do you mean?”

   “Ah…nothing.” He waved it off, he was not mentally prepared to explain to Eli what he had originally assumed if the other didn’t understand what he was talking about. “So what were you just doing?”

   “Kickboxing.” Eli replied with a shrug. He would be a liar if he said that Steve’s shocked expression didn’t make him smile (on the inside of course, he was still upset with this bastard.) “My sister recommended it as a way to deal with stress and stuff like that while I was staying with her and the habit kind of stuck.” He even had a punching bag in his room. He had been practicing his high kicks before Steve had interrupted, then again his legs had been burning pretty bad so maybe it was lucky that Steve came over when he did. Ugh, his legs were still burning.

   “Florist, kickboxer, you’ve changed a lot since high school.” Steve said. Eli just shrugged in agreement, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. Once again they fell into another bout of awkward silence.

   “But,” Steve added. “What hasn’t changed is the fact that I was an epic douche bag to you and that you’re right, you deserve an apology,” He took Eli’s silence as a signal for him to continue.

   “So um back then I was-had _stuff_ going on and I took it out on you-you know the classic bully story ‘Oh I’m hurting so I have to make other people hurt’ and all that cliché bullshit. And you just seemed so at ease-you didn’t even care about people thinking that you were weird with the whole cryptids theories-well until I started bugging you about-okay I am not helping by saying that. The point is I did stupid shit for stupid reasons and you didn’t deserve it and I am sorry.”

  “And?” Eli prompted.

   “And I’m especially sorry about the rumours because while I wasn’t thinking about my words back then-and I still don’t think about how I word things apparently-uh anyway, I was working through something and when those guys found out about the tutoring I couldn’t handle that being on my plate too so I turned it around and dumped it on you. I’m not trying to give excuses! Just-so you know _why_ I mean it’s not an excuse and if it was an excuse it’d be a shittacular excuse so what I’m trying to say is there is no excuse for how I acted.” Steve rambled.

    Could…could the earth just swallow him whole? Preferably in the next five seconds because holy fuck the look on Eli’s face was so blank that Steve had no clue whether he had completely fucked up again or if Eli had just died on him.

   “Steve, that was easily the most chaotic and jumbled up apology in the history of apologies.” He began, Steve winced awkwardly in return. “Which makes it a hundred percent you.”

   Steve breathed a sigh of relief before letting out an offended “Hey!” Eli chuckled in response. “So…are we good?”

   “We’re getting there.” His way of saying ‘I’m willing to put this in the past where it belongs but don’t expect it to disappear right away.’ And Steve understood that completely and was perfectly content with that answer, considering how it was a thousand times better than what he had been expecting.

   Steve…he was not one to open up easily or go about his feelings, he never had been.

   That whole ‘conceal, don’t feel’ shit that Elsa bragged about? Yeah, he had basically invented that. So he had no clue why he was trying so hard to mend things. He owed nothing to Elijah other than the amount of money that he would have to pay for the flowers. But at the same time, those talks that they would have among those tutoring sessions, the way that Eli had been able to get past one of his walls…it just felt good to let his guard down around someone you know? To just someone to confide in without fear of being judged. What was that called?

   “So how’d you get that Goblin that you seem to think is a cat?” Steve inquired, gesturing to the cat, who was contentedly eating. Smooth change of subject right?

   “Found her a few days after I moved in here in the mini-tree-bush,” Eli said, reusing the other’s brilliant terminology from earlier. “She was so tiny and I didn’t even know if she was going to last the night or not but the beast pulled through.”

   “Heart-warming story, but I still say that a goblin infiltrated your home and you just happened to name her accordingly.”

   “I wouldn’t insult her, she’s not exactly declawed you know.” He pointed out. Said feline was now looking at Steve and almost appeared to be glaring at him before she went back to eating her food.

   “…I think I’m afraid of your cat now.” Steve said dead serious causing Eli to burst into laughter.

 

 “Oh you are kidding! That is sick and wrong! Tell me that that didn’t happen!” Eli exclaimed, nose scrunching up in disgust even as he was laughing at the misfortunate tale.

  “I swear on my motorcycle, that was actually what was clogging the sink drain!” Steve cackled, while in the moment of occurrence these hotel from hell horror stories were absolutely terrible, they did make for good conversation afterward. “What about you? Any flower shop mishaps?”

   “…I am sincerely debating whether to tell you this or not.” Eli said.

   “Well now I’m curious as to what this could be.” He coaxed. Hadn’t Steve been planning to leave right after he apologized?

   “Okay, you have to promise that you do not breathe a word of this to anyone.” He stated even though all of his friends already knew this story, it was a popular favourite to tell when they went out drinking.

   “I promise.” He vowed.

   “Alright…well we were hosting a little flower show in the greenhouse, we do this every year at the shop-anyway, there were a bunch of different plants that people brought in, roses, sunflowers, cacti-”

   “You said cactus so I’m pretty sure I know where this is going now.” Steve cut in.

   “Shush, and trust me, it’s not going to end like you expect. So there was this customer and I was talking with them-well if I’m going to be honest there was some flirting going on-” Steve gave an ‘Ooh~’ at that as if they were a bunch of gossiping teenagers talking about the class hottie. Eli swatted him on the shoulder for that. “So I lean against this shelf to try and look all cool. The goddamn thing fell somehow and I fell directly onto the cacti conveniently located behind me.”

  “You’re kidding!” He gasped before laughter bubbled out from him; he could see the scene unfolding in perfect clarity.

   “I’ll admit, it wasn’t exactly my proudest moment, but I’m willing to bet that you have some maintenance mayhem stories that are worse than that.”

   “Do not get me started because I have barely even scratched the surface. While cacti in the ass is not exactly sunshine and roses, I am about to prove to you why toddlers are the spawn of the devil.”

   “Abby’s a toddler, you know.” Eli said, reminding him of his little niece.

   “Leave her in a lobby for two minutes and you’ll see what I mean.” He insisted. “Okay, so imagine this, toddler twins with popsicles in the lobby, parents who are not paying attention and the toddlers are hyped on sugar.”

   “Sounds like a recipe for disaster.” Eli grinned.

   “Honey! I’m home!” A voice called from the front door which was thrown open (Some-*kicks door in*-body once told me!) and slammed shut.

   “N-E you better not be tracking mud in again!” Eli shouted, Goblin hissed at the intruder while Steve was just confused as fuck. There was a man, light blonde hair styled into a messy mohawk, reddish brown eyes, his frame was somewhat smaller that Steve’s, and he was dressed as if a Hot Topic store had thrown up on him. Green Day t-shirt, scruffed up black jeans, spiked leather jacket, combat boots and a few accessories here and there, an eyebrow piercing to name one.

    Steve could swear that the man looked familiar to him somehow.

   “It already looks like Goblin hacked something up on the doorway!” The new voice yelled back. Okay, so Steve had spilled some coffee of the carpet. Nice. “Did you make dinner or were you going at the punching bag again?” He finally spotted Steve sitting on one of the stools in the kitchen and Eli sitting in the other across from him (fuck dining tables, no one got time for that). N-E gasped dramatically “Are you cheating on me?!”

   “NotEnrique, I swear to Zeus I will lock Goblin in your room tonight.” Elijah deadpanned.

   “Oh god, no thanks!” NotEnrique put his hands in front of him in a ‘hell no’ gesture. The cat and him had a…complicated relationship to say the least. He stepped on her tail once and she’s been plotting revenge ever since. Alright, maybe not _that_ complicated.

   “Uh…so are you two…you know.” Steve questioned, gesturing to the two of them, they just looked at him with perplexed faces. “Are you guys together?”

   Why the hell would Eli leave out the fact that he was seeing someone out? Well it’s not like Eli _had_ to tell him, after all they were still catching up, but still, a partner was a pretty big thing to leave out. Crap, had Eli been trying to keep that from him? Had he not been supposed to find that out? And what kind of name was NotEnrique? Seriously. And why was Eli dating someone who seemed like an ex-con or something. And why did Steve care about that?

    Eli nearly fell over laughing while N-E made vomiting noises. “Ew! Me and a human? No thanks! And I could ask the same thing of you two!” NotEnrique gagged. Steve felt his cheeks flame in embarrassment.

    Hold on…NotEnrique…Not Enrique. “Doesn’t Claire have a little brother named Enrique?” Steve inquired, changing the subject.

   “Behold! The evil Changeling who was sent to take his place as a baby but failed!” Eli said dramatically. Steve could tell by NotEnrique’s eyeroll that the joke was far to overused.

   “Doppelganger.” NotEnrique corrected. “Who had the bad luck of moving into the same town as my twin unrelated by blood. I swear to shit Eli, stop using monster theories to explain everything.”

   “Isn’t Enrique like more than a decade younger than Claire?” Steve pointed out. Now that he was thought about it, there had been a young boy with Claire when they had met up to discuss the wedding photography. Yeah, NotEnrique was taller than that boy, still pretty short though for a grown man however, but now that Steve was remembering Enrique he had to admit, NotEnrique looked a _lot_ like him.

   “Doppelganger who was cursed with a baby face.” NotEnrique deadpanned. “Cops keep thinking I’m a rebel twelve year old driving a car until they see my piercings, tattoos or hear my fucking voice.”

  “Once I got home from work early and he had taken off his jewellery and had his hair normal and not a mohawk and I swear that-”

   “Traitor!” N-E screamed, actually going to tackle Eli who just laughed and moved out of the way. “You swore to never speak of that and I swear that I’ll fucking smash your bitchass head against the wall until you forget ever seeing me like that!”

   “This is my roommate by the way.” Eli informed Steve who still had no clue what to make of the situation.

   “Er, nice to meet you Not-what’s your name?”

   “Oh please, it’s been so long since _someone_ ,” he glared at Elijah. “used my actual name and everyone caught on with the nickname so  at this point, even if I did tell you my name I wouldn’t respond to it. So yeah, NotEnrique or as Eli so lameassly calls me N-E.”

   “N-E (Ne) is also the symbol for Neon on the periodic table and considering that inhalation in excessive concentrations can result in dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and death, I’d say that suits you perfectly.” Eli replied coolly.

   Okay, so apparently Eli’s sass level had gone up since high school as well, Steve noted, he still had to add that special little dose of science though. Honestly, was Eli’s brain just connected directly to the internet or something like that? But seriously, that sass level though had Steve covering up a snort as a cough, N-E glared at him nonetheless.

   “Couldn’t you have just said something like ‘neon is used in glow lamps and glow lamps are cool as fuck just like you N-E’?” NotEnrique deadpanned.

  “Nope.” Eli said simply, now leaning against the wall in favour to going back to the stool in case NotEnrique tried tackling him again.

   “Sooo, what do you do for a living, NotEnrique?” Nice topic Steve, who are you, Will’s relatives? Because honestly, if Steve had a quarter for every time one of them asked what he worked as he wouldn’t need to work in maintenance anymore. Hell, if he got a nickel for every ‘oh’ or every sympathetic or snobby look they would give afterwards then he could buy an island. If he got a _cent_ for the following ‘have you considered a change in career?’ that they would ask he could probably buy the moon at the very least.

   So yeah, killer topic to go with.

      “I’m a tattoo artist.” NotEnrique shrugged. “Want one? I also do piercings from time to time.”

    “Uh, no thanks.” He declined. “So we have a tattoo artist,” he pointed to N-E, “A florist” he pointed to Eli next. “Who are roommates and have a hairless cat named Goblin.”

   “I keep telling Flower Child over here that those Hollywood lameasses should make a sitcom of us.” N-E grinned.

   “Flower Child?” Steve snorted. The nickname reminded him of a high school memory, namely when they had been paired up to raise a bag of flower. Needless to say the entire situation had been one big ball of cringe and awkwardness since Lawrence had caught Eli planning out that schedule that would limit their amount of time together and shut that idea down. Then again, it was during that time that Eli had learned that Steve needed help on a subject and the tutoring began.

   “He is the living embodiment of a hippie.” NotEnrique said.

   “I am not!” Eli protested.

   “You work at a flower shop, you have hippie hair, you have fucking stubble which while it suits you is totally hippie.” NotEnrique argued. “Plus you practically live off of coffee, and while I am not fully informed on the hippie lifestyle, I’m pretty sure you fit the damn criteria.”

   “Man, I am glad that I chose today to come over and talk.” Steve snickered, only to receive twin glares from Eli and Goblin.

 

   He ended up staying for nearly a half hour more, talking to Eli and NotEnrique about various topics. NotEnrique, like the amazing friend he was, told many embarrassing stories about his roommate which would lead to either Eli shrieking at him or trying to hit him with one of the throw pillows from the living room couch(they had moved from the kitchen to there). Whichever reaction Eli gave it lead to Steve exploding into fits of laughter. But Steve was fair and told his own ‘not my proudest moment’ stories in exchange for the ones that N-E told of Elijah.

   But between all the tales, Steve was actually learning more things about who Eli had become. He liked kickboxing, spicy food, conspiracy theories (that wasn’t a surprise), reading, music especially classics, science, among other things. It was as if it were a continuation of their talk at the coffee shop. Except now that there was less tension in the air he had learned things that he hadn’t noticed before.

    Things like how passionately Eli spoke when he was talking about things he enjoyed and how he would just light up while he did so, how he would scrunch up his nose when he laughed, how warm said laughter sounded, how he would tuck his hair behind his ear when it got into his face (while he tied up his hair for work he loved having it loose when he was home).

   Now, after arriving at his own home, Steve was about to go to sleep, the whole experience having drained him. A text alert halted him from doing so. It was Will.

   ‘ _Susan and I were going over the seating arrangements again_.’ The message read. Steve groaned aloud, already knowing what Lawrence was getting at.

   The second text confirmed his suspicions. ‘ _We were wondering if you by any chance, had a date to bring now.’_

   He replied with the same response that he’d been giving for far too long, his fingers having memorized it by now. _‘Will, everyone and their mother is already invited to the wedding, I doubt that anyone is going to notice that I don’t have a date.’_

   Steve could practically see Will sighing at his reply and Susan beside him, shaking her head and telling him to leave it be. ‘ _Alright, but we’ll keep that seat open just in chance alright?’_

 _‘Okay, night.’_  Thus calling the end to the topic. For the time being at least. Steve knew that his mom and nearly step-dad-wow that was going to take some getting used to-the word ‘dad’-anyway, he knew that they meant well, but it was getting exhausting.

   What was it? His looks? His shittacular personality? What was it about him that seemed to repel people? He had changed, a lot, during the years, but what hadn’t changed was how people just wanted nothing to do with him. He was probably to blame for that as well; his past partners had always said that he was too closed off. Steve had tried talking-tried communicating-but it was like no one knew his language. He just-he hated making himself emotionally vulnerable to people and closed up. Eli had gotten close to opening him up all those years ago-scratch that- he had-but Steve had gone and shut him out almost instantly. And here he was trying to do it again, would Steve just end up slamming the door in his face again?

    Anyway…back to the topic of Susan’s and Will’s wish of someone accompanying him to the wedding. He knew that they were going to keep asking him and while he knew they meant well, Steve wanted to scream and disappear from all of existence. Honestly, how could they think that anyone would even ponder the idea of escorting him to such an affair?

   Steve may have fixed his problems with Eli-begun to at least- but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have more problems lined up for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I know that it seems like they made up quickly but let me remind you of Eli's "We're getting there". Plus, in the show Eli forgave Steve easily even without an apology (but I do want to see Steve apologize to Eli in the show because holy fuck that would make me cry). Also I wanted this chapter to parallel the famous Creepslayer episode in a way, you know, in the show Steve came to Eli because of a Goblin that scared the shit out of him? Yeah. Also what are the odds of just finding a sphinx kitten like Eli found Goblin? 0.000000000000 percent.   
> Holy fuck imagining having NotEnrique as a roommate. O.O Would that be heaven or hell? (Fun fact, once Eli found N-E completely drunk off his ass and chewing on a sock.) NotEnrique is a messy roommate but sometimes instead of kickboxing Eli will clean to get out his stress.  
> I RE-READ THIS A MILLION TIME SO I DON'T HAVE ANOTHER SIXTY HOURS INSTEAD OF SIXTY MINUTES SITUATION (I still have not lived that down) SO IF THERE'S ANOTHER MISTAKE LIKE THAT I WILL FUCKING SCREAM I SHIT YOU NOT.   
> Oh and if the Gwen character is confusing you, she's Eli's sister, an OC I made for my other Steli fanfiction and I just had to bring her back because she is awesome (The reader's words, not mine although I have to agree.)   
> Rose leaf: You may hope.  
> ONE MORE THING, SORRY ALMOST FORGOT! I'm at least 87 percent sure that I'm not going to specify what exactly those rumours that Steve said about Eli were. So what do you guys think that they were?


	5. Stripped Carnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, you use the formula for Cos on this one to find the value of X.” A sixteen year old Eli explained in his cracked, puberty abused voice.  
> “Why are they so obsessed with making us learn this? Seriously, we’re never using this in real life.” Steve asked for about the millionth time, it was almost a ritual at that point; Eli would give a problem and Steve would demand why he needed to know how to solve it.  
> “You may not use it in real life but you are using it in the class which is what they grade you on.” He reminded. “Besides, trigonometry was actually used in the first clocks, they were called ‘Shadow Sticks', and they cast shadows to observe the motion of the Sun, thus telling the time.” Encyclopaedia Elijah to the rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this out before the new season because after I watch it I'm pretty sure that I'll be too emotionally vulnerable to do much else afterwards XD  
> What fanfiction would be complete without a totally not cliche flashback? Also if I wasn't so dead set on each title being a flower the title of this would be something like "Watch Steve make bad choices"  
> This chapter is shorter than I would have liked but I wanted to end it where it does.  
> HAVE SOME MORE OF MAH SHITTACULAR WRITING!

   What was the proper amount of days to wait before talking to the person that one spazzly apologized to for fucking over their four years of high school? If Steve kept getting into unorthodox situations he was going to start writing guides as to how to deal with them. Honestly, when did his life turn into a bad sitcom? He was debating when he should see a florist whose roommate was a tattoo artist and whose friends included a heavily tattooed barista with a prosthetic and a huge florist with loud green hair that looked like he could take on an entire football team. Speaking of which, back to his main dilemma, when exactly would it be alright to see Elijah?

   Sure, Eli had said that they were on the right road to recovery but Steve didn’t want to push his luck. Also, why the hell was he so eager to see him again? Was two days too soon to go the flower shop? God he had to stop overthinking this crap. Just check if the flower shop is busy and pop in to say a quick hello, maybe invite him to lunch again. See? Not too difficult! For anyone that wasn’t Steve Palchuk.

   All he had to do was turn corner and he would be at the shop, but he felt rooted in his place (rooted, get it? ~~I am not funny~~ ). He had been such an epic dick to Elijah in the past and while Eli had said that they were fine it didn’t stop Eli’s words from replaying in his head like a broken record.

_‘You couldn’t apologize for shoving me into lockers, for beating me up, for doing all those things to me every damn day of high school, but yes, be my guest Steve and apologize for a flower order!’_

   He wasn’t going to blame Elijah for saying what he did. Hurtful as it had been to hear, Eli hadn’t said a single thing that wasn’t the truth, he had just pointed out one of the many mistakes that Steve had made that he had tried to ignore. And in ignoring he had forgotten. Forgotten how he had hurt his f-how he had hurt his classmate. He couldn’t use the word friend, he didn’t deserve to.

_Do you have any idea what they did-!_

   Steve could only imagine, when their tutoring sessions had been discovered he had completely ignored Elijah and could now only imagine what the other bullies had done in his place. Sure, Jim, the little hero he was, would play the rescuer and stop whatever act of harassment that he saw but Jim couldn’t be everywhere. 

   What would things be like now if Steve would have had the balls to not care what his friends thought of Eli tutoring him? What would things be like if they had never caught them in the first place?

 

   “Now, you use the formula for Cos on this one to find the value of X.” A sixteen year old Eli explained in his cracked, puberty abused voice.

   “Why are they so obsessed with making us learn this? Seriously, we’re never using this in real life.” Steve asked for about the millionth time, it was almost a ritual at that point; Eli would give a problem and Steve would demand why he needed to know how to solve it.

   “You may not use it in real life but you are using it in the class which is what they grade you on.” He reminded. “Besides, trigonometry was actually used in the first clocks, they were called ‘Shadow Sticks', and they cast shadows to observe the motion of the Sun, thus telling the time.” Encyclopaedia Elijah to the rescue.

   “Okay well let me know when all the clocks in the world explode because that’s the only time I’m using this after I get out of high school.” Steve deadpanned; Eli gave a giggle in response which he muffled behind his hand, ever conscious of the whole ‘silence in the library’.

   They had set up these tutoring sessions a bit after Christmas break when Eli had accidentally overheard Lawrence talk with Steve about his slipping grades while they had been raising Flip and-against his better judgement-offered to tutor Steve. Lawrence wholeheartedly agreed with the idea while Steve had glared daggers into Eli. Now, five months later and nearly a month since summer break had begun the lessons continued. Since school was out Will had given them these booklets with various exercises on different subjects, Eli had always taken those before to entertain himself during summer break, but it was a lot more fun to go over it with Steve.

   When school ended for the summer neither had actually discussed what was going to happen to the lessons so they had just continued them. At first they had been meeting two to three days a week with a lot of complaining from Steve. Now, they usually met up five days a week. Not all of it was school related, sometimes it was just talking about random topics-cryptids and sci-fi if Eli got his way.

   They always usually met up at either one of their homes but since it was summer and absolutely sweltering they had vouched for the public library with its lovely air-conditioning. They were huddled up in the reading section that was usually where children were read to but it was empty so they had dragged two beans bags over next to the large picture window to work there. The sun streamed in through the window and reflected off of Eli’s glasses, a few months ago Steve would have demanded that Elijah move (or launch him out of the beanbag), now he just turned a bit to the side to avoid the glare of it. 

   “Hey, you never know it could happen.” Steve continued. “Imagine this, a million little clocks, ticking and out for revenge on the human race for the constant changing of time on daylight saving time.”

   “And then a war breaks out among the clocks between the analogs and the digitals.” Eli supplied, supressing another laugh.

   “Exactly! Oh no…”

   “What?”

   “It’s beginning…the clocks-they’ve come to life!” he exclaimed, holding up his hand that his wrist watch was on, acting as if it was attacking him and threw himself back onto the beanbag. Eli no longer flinched when Steve would quickly put his hand up. “Save yourself Pepperjack!” Now Steve Palchuk would _never_ be caught dead acting so juvenile (even if he had worn a fucking diaper for that competition thing) but if there was one thing that he had learned, it was that Eli did not care about appearances, nor did he judge based off of them.

   “You’re not getting out of doing your work that easily.” Elijah said dryly, crossing his arms and trying his hardest to not laugh at Steve’s show.

   “It was worth a shot.” Steve grumbled. He stretched his arms up above his head, felt something pop and dropped them back at his sides before he leaned back in the beanbag. “Come on, Pepperpal, my brain is swimming with numbers, cut me some slack.”

   Well, it was true that he had gotten a decent amount of work done. And…well Steve had been wanting to try something, just to see how it would go. Sometimes after studying they would watch a movie or some T.V series, Steve had even stayed over at Eli’s house for dinner a few times and vice versa, but it would always be in the comfort and privacy of their own home. He had been trying to…work up to this in a way, and now that school was out it was the perfect time to put his plan in motion.

   “Do you wanna get some ice cream?” He asked, sitting back up and trying to act as casual as possible.

   Eli’s brain broke for all of five seconds before going in to hyper drive as he attempted to process the offer. “W-what?” he stammered, voice cracking at the beginning because holy fuck did Steve, _Steve,_ just ask him to hang out? In public?!

   “It’s if you want to of course! It’s just that it’s hot and I think we deserve some damn ice cream.” He added quickly.

   “Sure, y-yeah that would be nice.” He agreed, beginning to put the notebook (and various books that he had checked out from the library) into his backpack before pausing and shooting Steve a stern look. “This better not just be an excuse to not do your work.”

   “Cross my heart, buttsnack.” Steve promised. Eli’s face softened before breaking into a wide grin. He finished packing up in a flash and jumped up, practically bouncing on his tip toes as he waited for Steve to put away his things.

   One of the best ice cream shops in town was located next to the library, one of those ‘build it yourself’ sundae bars with rows and rows of toppings from salted caramel bits to gummy bears. Eli had only gone there a handful of times since his mother was allergic to dairy but he had mentioned the place to Steve numerous times and how good the rocky road ice cream was.

    The way that Eli’s eyes lit up upon entering the shop made Steve’s whole existential crisis about whether or not to ask him seem trivial and automatically brought a smile to his face. “Don’t go nuts with the toppings.” Honestly, he didn’t even know what the place had, he had never gone there before and only knew about it because of Eli.

   “That was an awful pun and try to stop me.” Eli replied, already going to get a cup for his ice cream (everyone knows that cups hold more room for toppings than cones).

   “That pun was not intentional!” Steve denied, snatching up a cup as well. The shop wasn’t too crowded, pretty full for a Wednesday though so Steve’s loud voice blended in with the rest of the chatter.

   “My mom doesn’t let me have ice cream often because she doesn’t want me to become lactose intolerant.” Steve already knew this but Eli said it anyway.

   “Even if you were lactose intolerant, I’m pretty sure you’ve already gotten to a stage where you wouldn’t give a flip and eat it anyway.” He said matter of factly.

   “And who do I have to blame for that?” he accused, shooting him a look before scooping some rocky road into the cup.

   “Uh I think that you meant to say ‘and who do I have to _thank_ for that’.” Steve corrected. Fuck all of the flavour options; he was just going to go with strawberry. Why the hell was there blueberry cheesecake ice cream? If you want blueberry cheesecake so badly go and buy an actual cheesecake!

    Eli just stuck his tongue out at him and continued to shovel toppings on top of his frozen treat. Hopefully Eli’s mother never found out about this so she wouldn’t murder Steve. Eli was having a blast with it while Steve was just keeping his pretty basic. Honestly, how could Elijah be so easy to please? And how the hell was his mother able to say no to that face?

   They paid for their treats after Steve was finally able to drag Eli away from the topping counter who kept insisting that he was almost done. (I choose to not mention the prices of the ice cream because everything is too expensive now a days why?) The shop had various little round tables scattered throughout it as well as booths along the walls and window. Multi-coloured Christmas lights were strung from the ceiling, giving the place a sense of wonderment and playfulness. More than one couple were enjoying ice cream together, making lovey eyes at each other from across the table. On other tables it would be families with children out for a treat.  The whole place was bright and cheery and brought a soft smile to Steve’s face.

    Since nearly all the tables were full they opted to sit in one of the booths where Eli almost immediately pulled back out the work booklet causing Steve to groan and dramatically throw his head down on the table. Honestly, couldn’t they just hang out for five minutes without Eli reminding him that they were there because of something school related? “Come on! Can’t we just eat ice cream without the calculating?”

   Eli shook his head. “Steve, you know that we’re supposed to do two pages a day and you’re only missing half a page.”

    “This sucks.” He all but announced, slouching back in his seat and now stabbing at his ice cream with the spoon.

    He thought for a moment before getting an idea. “Okay, for every question you get right I’ll give you one of my toppings but if you get it wrong then I get one of yours.” He compromised. “I thought you liked winning.” He added when Steve seemed reluctant to answer.

   “You’re on!” he got out his notebook and got to work while Eli was trying not to laugh. Honestly, it was like tricking a little kid into eating their vegetables. A few moments later Steve turned his paper to Eli. “Is that right?”

    Eli looked it over and checked it against his before giving Steve a single one of his gummy bears. “Yep, you have seven questions left, keep going.” Some time and three questions later Steve had won another piece of candy but had lost two of his own. So essentially, they were tied. And Steve would have gotten the upper hand if he had done the fourth question but he was currently quarrelling with Elijah who had thrown a marshmallow at him when he had gotten the third question right.

    “You said I get a topping every time I get a question right, not one thrown at me!” Steve bickered, even though he had already eaten the offending marshmallow.

   “I did say that I would give you one for every one you got right but I never said that I had to be happy about it.” Eli pointed out, munching on a chocolate coated pretzel bit.

   “You little imp.”

   “If I’m an imp then what does that make you? A Troll?” he smirked.

   “If sugar makes you sassy then I am never inviting you for ice cream again.” He threatened. Eli’s response was to flick a jelly bean at him. Steve burst out laughing. “I am _not_ getting into a food fight with you in the middle of an ice cream shop!” Eli just gave a mischievous smile in return.

   “Hey nerd!” The smile immediately fell and Eli paled. From behind Steve a pair of boys that he knew all too well from school were approaching. They were Steve’s friends and partners in crime and while they hadn’t spotted said boy yet they had certainly seen Eli.

    “Eli? What-” the question died on Steve’s lips as he turned around and immediately wished that he hadn’t. The sadistic grin on the bullies faces shifted to confusion when they spotted Steve. Steve. In an ice cream shop. With Eli. Notebooks in front of them. They had spotted Eli from across the shop, laughing and smiling and had assumed that he was on a date or something so they had gone to ruin it for him. But to find him with Steve?

    “Steve? What the hell are you doing with Pepperjack?” One of the two boys asked, slowly, as if he didn’t know what to make of the scene that he had stumbled onto, which was true.

   Steve’s throat closed up. Of all the times that they could have found them, of all the _places._ How the hell was he supposed to explain this? ‘Hey don’t mind me, I just asked the nerd that all bullies are supposed to mess with out for ice cream after a study session.’ He wanted to look back at Eli, who was no doubt just as terrified as he was if not more, but he couldn’t-no, he didn’t dare.

    “Wait…don’t tell me.” The second began. Steve’s heart was thudding in his ears like an oncoming locomotive.

   “You’re gunna mole him aren’t you?!” the first exclaimed. Steve’s eyes widened. He’d heard of bullies moling the unpopular kids before but it had sounded to brutal, even to him. Basically moling meant that the bully would pretend to be friends with the less popular kid, only to reveal that they were just playing with their feelings the whole time. Effectively drilling a gaping hole in the person’s self-esteem.

   Normally it was done at the beginning of the year to freshman and the reveal of the faked friendship would be huge and public. Steve had seen quite a few and while he would push people into lockers or things like that but messing with someone’s head like that? He had sworn off that, especially after seeing the after results. People crying in the bathroom, missing school for a week after, and just not believing that anyone would truly want them. So why did he answer with what he did?

    “Aw come on you guys, I was trying to drag it out longer.” The words came out without thinking and the taste of ice cream in his mouth was replaced with bile. ‘How to mole: Step one, pretend to befriend one of the unpopular kids’; Steve recalled one of his ‘friends’ explaining to him.

   “Oh that is cold!” the second boy cackled, clapping his hands together.

   “I thought that you said that you weren’t going to mole anyone.” The first boy said.

   “Well times change. I wanted to find the perfect way to do it you know?” Now Steve absolutely did not want to turn back to Eli. But that didn’t stop his brain from providing in perfect detail what expression Eli had to be wearing. Couldn’t they just leave so Steve could explain to him that he didn’t mean anything of what he was saying?

    “I had been wondering why you haven’t been messing with him as often.” The second agreed. “Must have been easy to do though, I mean come on, he obviously looks up to you.”

   “Looks up to? Please, it’s more like admire.” Boy number one corrected.

    Two gave a shark grin of a smile. “Maybe admire isn’t it either, maybe it’s more-”

    “Steve.” Eli’s voice came out smaller than Steve had ever heard it. “C-can we please go?” Oh god, he sounds so terrified, Steve couldn’t help but notice, stop, stop asking me to protect you when I can’t. Stop asking me to be brave when I’m just as scared as you.

   “Aw, you can’t go yet.” The second cooed, voice so falsely sweet that it made Steve want to vomit. ‘Step two, carry out false friendship for desired amount of time’, the voice rang in his head. No, that wasn’t what he had wanted for Eli-even before the tutoring had commenced-he had never wanted something so cruel for him.

   “You haven’t even finished your ice cream.” The first said, walking past Steve whose jaw was set so tightly that his teeth were close to cracking. “Here, let me help.” Steve knew what the boy had planned a second too late and whipped around ‘Don’t’ right on the tip of his tongue.

    The word and all that may have followed died a bitter death still in his mouth, silenced by Eli’s yelp. The boy had already smashed the cup onto Elijah’s head-ice cream already partly melted from how Eli had been taking his time eating to give Steve a chance to answer the questions. It dripped down his face, wept down to his clothes, staining them in fudge. The whole shop had gone quiet-save for the laughter of the two boys-and was now watching the scene.

    ‘Step three, reveal the scam, the larger the audience the better.’

   Eli’s bottom lip quivered and his eyes flooded with tears. Steve knew that he was never going to hate himself more than he did at that moment. So he didn’t hold Eli’s next words against him, the last ones he uttered before dashing out of the ice cream shop, “I hate you.”

 

     Steve’s drop back to present time was like leaping off a cliff-and honestly he was fairly sure that the action would hurt less than what he was feeling at the moment. Had he really forgotten that memory or had he forced himself to forget?

    An apology was one thing-one long overdue thing-but trying to rekindle his friendship with Eli? Unthinkable, undoable. How could Eli even have accepted his piss poor apology? How could he even look at him? Was it just because Elijah was the most forgiving human on the planet or was it because Steve was too pushy? Either way, yes, he delivered his apology and cleared up past misunderstandings somewhat, but no way could he keep pushing himself into Eli’s life.

    How would that be fair? Hadn’t Steve already left a shitty enough impression on him? How could he really think that he could just keep waltzing into the damn flower shop? No, he had done enough. Best that he get out now before he messed things up all over again. After all, that seemed to be all that he was good at when it concerned Eli.

    True, they weren’t in high school anymore, no more peer pressure of trying to fit in with the cool kids or reputations to keep up. But Steve still had parts of him under wraps. Parts that he still wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable with letting come to light. Because what if everyone saw? Would they accept what they saw? Or would they turn away with a sneer? Then again it would be a kind of poetic justice wouldn’t it? People looking at him the way that he used to look down on so many people. But Eli looking at him like that? He wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even if he did deserve it.

    So he turned around and left. He supposed that now would be a good time to start writing those guides. Steve Palchuk’s guide on how to stop fucking over someone’s life: Step one. Walk away. Done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stripped Carnation: No; Sorry I can't be with you; Wish that I could be with you.  
> If it makes you feel better, in the original version of this I had been planning on Eli exiting the shop at that moment and spotting Steve :') I just felt like this chapter was necessary??? As out of place as it may have seemed. Ironically, I looked up "moling" to see if it had a definition and it has something to do with digging (plumbing and other shit but mostly digging) And I was just like "Oh, like how it digs away at someone's self esteem." :') Nice. I called it mole/moling since the school mascot is a mole though. And while some people might think it's a bit out there, there are fucking bastards who will do things like this, unfortunately.  
> ALSO IF Y'ALL HAD ANY IDEA HOW HYPED I AM FOR THIS NEW SEASON!!!!!!!!!!  
> Okay, I'm brain dead so I'm not going to drag on the end notes as I always do. Leaving a comment would mean the world to me!!!   
> MY COMPUTER FUCKING BROKE SO THE NEXT CHAPTER IS GOING TO POSTPONED, SORRY


	6. Anemone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They switched from different topics away from wedding nightmares, although they did talk about how business in the flower shop was going. Mostly they spent time discussing what thing were superior to others, like what pizza topping was the best (Steve liked plain pepperoni while Eli argued that vegetable was superior), or if Marvel or DC was better, or whether sweet or salty snacks were the best. After not too long they finished eating and walked around the park, Eli apparently forgetting that he had a roommate to get back to. The weather was being complacent, remaining at its cloudy, not to sunny but no threat of immediate rain, state.  
> And now they were on the short bridge in the middle of the park, looking down at the river below and arguing as to which Disney movie was the best.  
> The discussion was getting personal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Strolls in like a bad bitch holding arms out* As you can see, I am not dead.  
> Yeah it totally hasn't been like a month or anything like that!! This is pretty much a filler episode, a bridge between what's about to go down.  
> Never fuck with Atlantis or I will hunt you down and kill you myself because hOLY FUCKING SHIT DO PEOPLE NOT SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL THE MOVIE IS!?!?!?!?!?! Just...don't fuck with Atlantis.  
> WATCH THE TWO FUCKS BE AWKWARD LIL SHITS!!!!

 The rest of the time till the wedding went by quickly with Steve not attempting to contact Eli again, and Elijah too confused and hurt to go talk to Steve on his own accord. He had truly thought that they were on better terms now but was soon left thinking otherwise with how actively the man avoided him. So he didn't try either. Steve hadn't been a big part of his life before but it was still hard to cut him out of it. But he was able to and feel back into the schedule that he had followed like gospel for so long.

    Eli finished the flower order on time as he would for any other customer and was out of Steve's life as quickly as he had entered. The wedding came and went and with no excuse to talk to Eli again, Steve simply did not.

    At least that's how it would have gone if not for

  "N-E did you finish the milk already?!" Eli shouted. He had already poured his bowl of cereal but no milk was proving to be a setback in his plans to have breakfast.

  "Oops?" NotEnrique replied from the living room with a shrug. "Guess I forgot to tell you."

  "You also 'forgot' to mention that there's no bread either, or cheese or -N-E how many times do I have to tell you to write what we need from the store on the whiteboard?! " Honestly, it's why he has bought the stupid thing in the first place.

  "I forgot!" N-E yelled back. Sure, NotEnrique was a good friend and generally awesome guy but there was a reason why not many people could tolerate him as a roommate.

  "How could you forget?! The board is literally on the fridge!"

  "Are you okay?" NotEnrique asked, instead of shouting again. "You've been on the edge lately." He decided to put it politely instead of going with his usual ' Well you certainly have a pole shoved up your ass.' "Anything on your mind?"

  'Yeah stupid adult stuff, flower deadlines, and one of the customers of said deadline who said that he would call but hasn’t so far even though it’s been like a week.' He thought but didn’t say. Eli supposed that Steve was probably busy with work or other things. Or that now that Steve cleared his conscious he didn't want anything else to do with him. But of course Eli couldn't say that.

  He didn't have to, NotEnrique could see the answer etched into his face as clearly as the tattoos that he etched onto people and instantly felt bad for yelling back at him. "I don't have to be at the parlour today so I'll go grocery shopping with you alright?" He offered.

    Eli looked at him, clearly surprised because the fact that N-E hated shopping was as well-known as the fact that the sky is blue. NotEnrique had to laugh at the look on his face. "Consider it my punishment for not writing on your fucking board. Now shut your trap before you catch a fly and get dressed." He added, shooing the florist away.

  He looked like he was going to argue but just snapped his mouth shut and went to get change his clothes like N-E had told him. Maybe a trip to the grocery store would be the distraction that he needed. Eli didn't grab anything fancy, just a red hoodie and some jeans that didn't look too worn out, messily tying his hair in a ponytail. And of course before they left Eli wrote a list of things that needed to be bought as dramatically as possible. NotEnrique, in turn, flipped him off.

 

    How had it taken Eli so long to notice everything that was missing at the house? Maybe it was because he wasn't home half the time. Whatever the cause, he was glad that he noticed now, even if it had caused him breakfast. Eli's stomach wasn't complaining too much about that decision. Yet. NotEnrique was manning the grocery cart while Eli scanned the shelves for what they needed. N-E also contributed to the trip by questioning half the stuff that Eli put into the cart. Example: "Why do we need lettuce?" "Because you need to eat your vegetables." While Steve had complained to Eli about toddlers, Eli was pretty sure that compared to NotEnrique a kid would be less work. Then again NotEnrique was practically just a kid that had access to sharp objects and alcohol. Eli was currently looking through the produce aisle, checking the list as he went. Potatoes check, lettuce check, green apples...where the hell did they put those? Ah, there.

  A familiar head of blondish hair caught the corner of Eli's eye. No. No way. Stop with the cliché meeting places already (haha you wish). But sure enough when Eli got a clearer look Steve was there, half turned away from him and checking the cantaloupes. Okay, Elijah knew that he had been wondering when he was going to see Steve but he didn't plan for It to be like this! He had expected the setting to be more professional, the flower shop perhaps, but not here! Not when he was grocery shopping in a ratty hoodie and ugh had he even bothered to brush his hair when he picked it up? Yeah, nope, he vowed to call Steve later instead of waiting for Steve to call him but he was not going to go up to him in the middle of a grocery store. Eli put up his hoodie and prayed that the other wouldn't see him.

  "Hey Steve!" The little shit-er-NotEnrique called, waving at the man who nearly dropped the cantaloupe that he had been holding, startled. Eli glared at his roommate who just shrugged innocently.

  "Hey NotEnrique." Steve greeted, going over, he hadn't spotted Eli yet who was trying to disappear into his hoodie, clutching the bag of apples close.

  "Doing some light shopping?" N-E asked, gesturing to Steve's basket.

  "Yeah, just picking up a few things. You on the other hand, look like you're restocking the whole kitchen."

  "Tell me about it," NotEnrique agreed with an eye roll. "I don't even like grocery shopping but Eli dragged me along."

  "Hey you offered to go!" Eli argued, finally speaking up. "If you had just used the stupid whiteboard then we wouldn't be here right now!"

  The outburst startled Steve a touch but not as much as seeing Eli did. Seriously, did life get some sort of sick amusement out of Steve tormenting himself with past mistakes? If so then it was for one helluva ride. "Hey." Great, limited to one word phrases yet again.

  "Hey." Elijah repeated awkwardly. Would it be possible to disappear into his hoodie? Jesus Christ why was this so fucking awkward?! Shouldn't it be easier now that they had talked things out? Or maybe it was worse for the same reason. God why had they talked shit out?

  "Okaaay...I'm going to go get bread." NotEnrique said despite there already being both bread and bagels in the cart. He slowly retreated backwards before turning and escaping the awkward scene. Best to leave them be, they'd figure it out on their own.

  "Hey." Steve said once more. "Uh sorry for not going to see you or anything I didn't want to seem weird or something? Even if that's what I'm being right now." He was lying through his teeth. 'Sorry for not going to see you, I was too much of a coward.' Would be closer to the truth. Or maybe 'Sorry for not going to see you but I had figured that I already fucked up your life enough.' Maybe a combination of the two.

  How the hell had Steve known what he was thinking? "Oh uh no, it's fine, I mean I could have called you but even though I've been busy." Actually it was more like 'I would have called you but my anxiety stopped me from even picking up the phone.' Or 'I would have called you but I figured that you were tired of me and would find it annoying if I had bothered you.' Maybe a combination of the two.

  There was a bout of silence. What was with the whole on off of being able to talk with each other? Just choose something to talk about, it wasn't that difficult! "So you like green apples huh?" Steve questioned, pointing to said bag of apples that Eli was holding. Nailed it!

    "Yeah, I like the green ones because they're kind of tart but I couldn't get NotEnrique to eat a piece of fruit if my life depended on it." Eli said in exasperation.

    Steve chuckled a bit. "Seriously, do you even know his name or have you forgotten at this point?"

  "I know his name, it's just more amusing to call him NotEnrique." Eli shrugged, putting the apples in the cart that N-E had abandoned.

  "Care to clue me in on what his name is then?" He asked. He couldn't be but be curious. Was it something dorky like Benedict or something of that sort?

  "Do you really want to know?" He offered, whispering as if it were a secret code. Steve nodded. Eli motioned him to come closer. Steve did as told and Eli whispered "Too bad."

  "Oh come on! Don't lead on a guy like that!" Steve complained. A few nearby shoppers looked over momentarily at his outburst before going on with their errand.

  Eli chuckled at the others drama. "Anyway, how's the wedding planning going?" Hopefully there were no other flower changes that needed to be taken care of. Although that could probably be the base for a joke between Steve and he, something like 'Are you _sure_ that you can decide on what kind of pizza you want? Remember how you're always changing your mind on things.' Eli dismissed that thought, what was he thinking? No way could anything become an old joke between them.

  "If I hadn't already thought that weddings were too large and elaborate then I sure do now. I mean they're not even doing anything too fancy and it's a pain in the ass!" Steve groaned.

  "I think it's a sure fire way to see if the two people getting married are ready to, with all the planning and work that goes into it." Eli said. "Plus since it’s not just a change for your mom but for you too. I think it's great that they're including you so much in the planning."

  "That's what I thought too! I mean seriously, they had to choose between like five different bow ties that all looked the same." Steve agreed. "I-I guess that's true, I mean it's gotten some getting used to, yeah."

  "I can imagine. Oh! Remember that time back in high school when you accidentally called him dad in the middle of gym class?" He chuckled, somehow looking at back at high school now didn't leave such a vile taste in his mouth. It hadn’t been the first (or only) time that Steve had messed up like that but it was certainly the most memorable.

  "Ugh you _remember_ that?! Nope, I'm going back to the cantaloupes, I'm not going to find out what other blackmail material you remember." He said, definitely not being dramatic in the slightest.

  "You're not getting rid of me that easily Palchuk!" Eli laughed. Okay, maybe he didn't have to over think how he should talk to Steve as much as he had been.

  "Bite me, Pepperjack. Now what do I have to do for you to not say any embarrassing high school horror stories about me?"

  "What stories? Like the time you wore a diaper to win that school contest?" He asked, feigning innocence.

  "Oh my god! You're even worse than my mom telling baby stories to Will!" Steve practically screeched.

  "But I'll take pity on you, since N-E ditched me you can help me finish my shopping and maybe he won't hear about these stories." Eli relented. Steve hesitated, on one hand he wanted to say yes, on the other the promise to himself to stay the hell out of Eli's life weighed heavily. "I was just kidding, Steve, you don't have to." Eli added, sensing Steve's insecurities.

    "No! Uh, I was just trying to remember if I had run out of eggs." Steve said quickly. "I _will_ bitch about the wedding the whole time though." He warned.

  "I expected as much." Eli nodded. He was used to NotEnrique going on and on talking so silence had become strange to him. Plus he liked having someone to talk to-or just listen to. "So besides bow ties, what else has been discussed?" He started pushing the cart down the aisle as he spoke.

  "Flowers, obviously, the tablecloth, the catering, music, guest list, invitations, save the date cards, the bachelor and bachelorette parties which oh god was a hell that I'm not ready to discuss." He shuddered, causing Eli to chuckle as he checked out the onions and decided that he didn't need them after all.

  "I never knew how many relatives Will has until now, he has a _lot_ of siblings. I can't even imagine what his house must have been like when he was a kid. And almost all his siblings have kids and those little gremlins seem to think I'm a jungle gym." He continued.

  "I'm starting to think that you think that all children are gremlins." Eli pointed out.

  "Because so far they are." But despite his thoughts he actually had a way with Lawrence's nieces and nephews. Though he supposed that they were his cousins now.

  "Five minutes. Spend five minutes with my niece Abby and she'll change your mind." He guaranteed, not for the first time.

  "Uh-huh, I'll take your word for it." Steve rolled his eyes, smiling. "What else do you need to pick up?"

  "Um…coffee, milk, juice, crackers-I only got to the produce aisle so far." He admitted, looking at his list. NotEnrique had taken the list from him in the car and had added some crude things as well. Eli made sure that Steve didn't spot said items on the paper. Seriously, NotEnrique's a great friend and incredibly funny but one of these days Eli was going to strangle him. "What about you? Are you almost done or are you missing things?" While he had asked Steve to shop with him he didn't want to keep him if he was already finished.

  "No, no I uh, I just got here." Steve lied. He had just been finishing up actually. But Steve knew that he wasn't going to be able to get another chance to talk with Eli so easily-well at least not with how he kept second guessing every way he was going to go about taking to him.

  Plus, Eli had even agreed to listen to his nightmare wedding planning stories. "Oh hey, pass me those will you?" Steve asked, pointing to the bags of sweet potatoes. He didn't need them but he knew that Will enjoyed the potatoes salad that Susan could make with them. Eli passed it over to him. "Thanks."

  "No problem." Had the store moved the spinach since the last time he was there? He could make an omelette with that tomorrow.

  "Looking for anything?" Steve asked, noticing Eli's wandering eyes.

  "Yeah -just - I can't find the spinach." He explained, wheeling the cart through the aisle. He would also kill for a cup of coffee since due to the lack of groceries he had been denied that too and not just breakfast.

  "I passed by it, I'll get it, be back in a sec, Popeye" Steve said, going off in the supposed direction of the green.

  Eli chuckled a bit before turning his attention back to the produce. Maybe talking out past disagreements had been a good idea. After all, Steve was such a nice guy now, fun to hang out with too. It didn't turn off his doubts but it did a pretty good job muffling them. Steve came back, waving the bag of spinach above his head like some sort of champion and smiling like a fool. Eli gave a short giggle at that while a voice in the back of his head noted what a nice smile Steve had. "Thanks, Olive Oil." He teased as Steve out the spinach in the cart.

    Steve shot him an unamused look, even though he was the one who had started it. "Just for that, I'm going to rant about the guest list for at least ten minutes." He threatened.

    "Fire away." Eli replied nonchalantly, now looking for the next item on his list.

 

  Eli's stomach was trying to summon a pod of whales and he was desperately trying to get it to be quiet. Thus far Eli had succeeded but if he didn't pay for the groceries in five seconds he was pretty sure that his stomach would consume itself. Most days he could go without breakfast but noooo, today his stomach had to be a delicate ass flower that couldn't wait ten more fucking minutes for food. He was already in the checkout line with Steve and it looked like he was going to have to call N-E to the register as if the tattoo artist was a lost child. Eh, it wouldn't be the first time that Eli would have had to do that. Eli huffed out a breath, and fiddled with a loose strand of his hair anxiously, convinced that the whole store could hear how his stomach was (barely) growling.

  "You okay there, Pepperjack?" Steve asked, a trace of concern lacing his voice.

  "What?" Eli jumped a bit. "No-I mean yeah, I'm fine." He replied, waving It off, before returning his arms to wrap around his middle, that being the only thing to silence his insides growls.

  "Are you sure? You look like you have a stomach ache." He so intelligently observed.

  "I'm fine." Eli insisted, moving his gaze to the woman in front of him who was finally done with her transaction. He sighed in relief and moved his cart forward, emptying its contents onto the conveyer belt.

  "If you say so." Steve relented, helping Eli put his things onto the belt.

  "Oh-no-you really don't have to." He said quickly. Steve just helping him with his shopping had been enough, besides they had gotten a chance to talk in the meanwhile. But Steve didn't have to go out of his way for - Eli's stomach chose that moment to mimic the noise of a wounded Sasquatch. You know that moment, when you do something and you feel like everyone's staring at you and judging you for it? Yeah, that's what Eli was feeling and despite being a grown man he wanted to hide into his hoodie for eternity and a day. He heard Steve let out a little huff of laughter and shrunk even further.

    "Why didn't you just say that you were hungry?" Steve asked, shaking his head at Eli's stubbornness to admit anything. "I'll get you something after we're done here."

  "No, that's not-that's not necessary." Eli declined. Steve had already bought him lunch once and he would be damned if he let that happen again.

  "Knowing you, you didn't have breakfast and came straight over here didn't you?" Even though it was phrased as a question it was more like an accusation.

    Eli gave a little half shrug in response before politely going through the usual conversation with the cashier. The whole mandatory 'Did you find everything that you were looking for?' And 'How are you?' That any retail worker had to go say. Eli checked the total, swiped his card, pushed the corresponding buttons and took the receipt from the cashier, giving her a polite smile. He began bagging his groceries with the reusable bags that he always used while Steve paid for his own things.

  "Oh! Uh and can you please send out a page for someone who goes by the name N-E?" Eli added. The cashier quirked an eyebrow but sent out the page anyway. Eli finished bagging his things and helped Steve with his groceries too under the excuse that he was waiting for NotEnrique.

    Said tattoo artist strolled up less than five minutes later with a hand full of m'ms that he had gotten from those quarter candy dispensers. "You two finally done?" He asked.

    Eli shot him a glare, mentally saying 'Yeah, thanks for all your help by the way.' But kept his trap shut. His stomach growled again, reminding Eli of his hunger and Steve of his offer to get Eli something to eat.

  "What are you in the mood for?" Steve asked before turning to N-E and explaining. "I had offered to take Eli to get some food, you can come along too obviously."

  "Now I ain't one to pass up a free meal but we got groceries." NotEnrique declined. Eli gave a sigh of relief, glad that he didn't have to come up with an excuse. "But you should definitely take Eli, I don't think he's gunna eat otherwise." He continued.

  "It's really not necessary." Eli declined once more. "N-E's going to need help unpacking and putting everything away and-" his stomach's protesting cut off his own.

  "I insist." NotEnrique beamed. Said smile would have seemed innocent if it came from anyone else. "I'm more than capable of putting away groceries, Flower Child."

  "It's if you want." Steve assured, not catching on to N-E's ploy.

  "It's -alright, yeah, I'll go with you." Eli gave in, he wasn't going to win this with no valid excuse and NotEnrique betraying him. Eli turned to his roommate and gave him a sharp look. "You better put everything in its place, N-E." He warned.

  "Aye, Aye, Captain." He replied, giving him a salute. He took the cart from Eli and shooed them off. Eli shot him one last scowl before going off with Steve, NotEnrique just smiled in response.

  It wasn't NotEnrique's fault that he didn't understand or wish for a romance. But he had seen how the two of them had talked when Steve had come over to their house, he had noticed the dopey smile Eli had after, and he had observed how the two of them had talked and laughed while they shopped around. So yeah, it wasn't NotEnrique's fault that he didn't understand or wish for a romance, but that didn't mean that he couldn't see chemistry when it was right there.

 

  Steve's house was a short distance from the grocery store so they walked there first (Steve had not taken his motorcycle to the store). Steve dropped his groceries off there and with some coaxing he was able to convince Eli to ride on his motorcycle; it would be the fastest way to get to where they were going of course, plus he had a spare helmet. Neither had discussed where they planned to eat but they both knew, had both mutually agreed to the location without speaking. Steve just wished that Draal wouldn't be there to fix him with another death stare.

  Riding his motorcycle with Eli sitting behind him, arms wrapped around his waist, sent a wave of nostalgia through him. It was so much like when they would ride on his Vespa as teenagers-well except Eli wasn't all skin and bones now. And Eli wasn't gripping him as tightly as he used to, in fact he was barely even touching him. Steve didn't know why he noticed such a thing, why it bothered him so much but he pushed the thought to the side as he drove down the road. Not many cars were on the road which was a plus, it meant that they could get to where they were going faster. The downside was that Steve kind of wanted to show off by weaving between cars and he couldn't do that with so few cars on the road. At least not without Eli demanding why he was doing such a thing. Ah well, there was always next time-he shouldn't assume that there was going to be a next time, Steve was pretty sure that he was pushing his luck already.

  Eli was quiet as he sat behind Steve on the motorcycle, it wasn't as if he could make conversation, any words would be stolen by the wind, that and what could he even say? So he focused on whatever else that he could to pass the time. Things like how different it was riding with Steve than it was driving a car, how the view changed. Things like how he made sure that he wasn't clinging onto Steve too tightly, trying to keep his touch as faint as possible not to bother the other. The wind made Eli's eyes sting a bit, even more so with how loose strands of his hair whipped into them but he found that he didn't mind that much. The sky above looked different as well, bluer somehow. Clouds speckled the vast blue above, sunny, but not overwhelmingly sweltering like it would be later in the summer. Eli sighed and fought to not lean into the Steve even though the idea sounded unbelievably comfortable.

  They reached the cafe rather quickly, Steve parked by the curb and fed the appropriate number of coins into the meter before Eli got a chance to offer to take care of it. He tried to make up for it by holding the door open for him and Steve struggled to not laugh at Eli's over-effort to be gentlemanly.

  "Thank you, kind sir." Steve said, doing a short half curtsy that made laughter bubble out of Eli.

  Crap. Steve had not realized how full the cafe was. Then again he hadn't really checked before entering but still. Even though the line wasn't very long Steve was pretty sure that all the tables were full and frowned to himself. Seriously Life? Could you let him do just one thing right? Was that so much to ask? Apparently so. He muttered a curse under his breath.

  "Do you want to eat somewhere else?" Eli offered even though Steve had been the one to invite him.

  "I chose here because you like this place," Steve said matter of factly. He sighed and scratched the back of his neck, trying to come up with something. "Do you want to get the food to go?" He suggested.

  "The park's nearby." Eli shrugged "We could go there?" He really had no clue what to say, he had only been planning on having a quick meal with Steve and now _he_ was suggesting that they go to the park?! What was he getting himself into now? Nice going Pepperjack, excellent job, he could win first prize on the 'digging ones grave' contest.

  "Sounds like a plan." Steve smiled, relieved that Eli had no protests. But Steve knew that he was seriously pushing his luck. The relieved feeling lasted two seconds, then he saw who was manning the cash register. Yep. Figured. Okay at least Draal hadn't spotted him ye-scratch that, he had just seen him, well he didn't seem to be angr-nope Draal spotted Eli (who was too busy having an existential crisis to notice) next to him and glared at Steve. Great. "So uh," he moved his gaze from Draal to Eli. "Let’s make the line."

    Eli nodded, fiddling with the string of his hoodie. "Do you know what you want?" He asked as they stepped behind the woman in line.

  "Yeah." Steve lied. "Do you?"

    "I'll just have what I had last time." He replied. Eli was also in the mood for some fries but he didn't say so since Steve was already paying.

    Steve gave a noise to show that he was listening and the two fell into a comfortable silence while they waited to get to the front of the line. Well the silence was comfortable, not much else of the situation was, Eli was still fiddling with the string of his hoodie and questioning every life decision while Steve was trying not to think of every way that Draal could kill him. They shortly reached the register and Steve cleared his dry throat before speaking. Only to be cut off by Eli who finally realized who the cashier was.

  "Hey Draal, how are you?" He said cheerily.

  "I'm doing alright, it's been pretty hectic this morning." His eyes flicked over to Steve "What about you? What uh what are you doing?"

  "I'm fine except for NotEnrique not being able to let me know something as simple as when we're out of milk."

  "Has he ever been able to do so before?" Draal said matter of factly. "So, Steve's treating you to lunch again huh?"

  Eli felt his face heat slightly in embarrassment. "The first time was an accident, I ran into him at the grocery store and he _insisted_ on getting me some food since my stomach wouldn't stop sounding like a wounded whale." He explained.

  "Did he now?" Any tone that Draal's voice carried was lost to Eli.

  "Yes, and we wouldn't want to keep you for very long since it’s so hectic like you said so it'll be a turkey pita, the special of the day, an order of large fries, coffee for Eli and an iced tea." He ordered quickly, trying to keep any bite out of his voice. Oh and he had no clue what the special was.

    The look that Draal have him had Steve adding at least a dozen more ways that Draal could kill him onto his imaginary list.

 

    "So you've gotten better at driving, you didn't crash into a pole." Eli said after roughly fifteen extremely awkward minutes in the cafe and on their way to the park while Steve wondered why the hell the special would be soup. Especially with how hot it was. He had fed the meter some extra quarters to insure that it wouldn't run out while they ate. The amount of clouds had grown, the white puffs turning an angrier shade of grey and threatening the day later with rain. The threat was more than welcome since it has been awfully hot and humid as of late.

  "Oh my god, you seriously still remember that!?" Steve groaned.

  "How could I not? I got in a hell of a lot of trouble because of that." Eli teased, for once walking down memory lane wasn't so painful.

  "It wasn't my fault! Raccoons shouldn't be able to pick locks!" He defended. He motioned to a bench right inside the park entrance and Eli nodded in agreement.

  "Really? You're still going with that? You can't just admit that you didn't lock the cage properly?" He deadpanned, taking a seat on the bench.

  "It was your cage, your locks were faulty, not my fault." He declared, taking a seat a friendly distance from him.

  "And you thought that the raccoon was some sort of goblin." Eli chuckled, shaking his head at the memory.

  "Uh, one: that thing had some sort of skin or hair disorder or some shit, and two, you weren't exactly disagreeing with me." He sassed.

    Eli laughed "I was a teenager obsessed with cryptids! Like hell I was going to disagree with the possibility of there being monsters in Arcadia!"

  "If there were monsters I would bet on either Aargh or Draal, huge guys, maybe golems in disguise or shapeshifters." Steve said, making spooky motions at Eli who snorted.

    "Nah, my money is on N-E." He chuckled. "He's a tattoo artist with the face of a child." He unwrapped his pita and took a bite. Perfect as always.

  "What about Goblin? No way can that wrinkly thing be a cat." Steve said, getting his own food out. Soup, fucking soup on a hot humid day. Was this actually the special or had Draal just been fucking with him?

  "Steve, your first words upon seeing me after nearly a decade can be 'Buttsnack', you can be completely clueless on how to order flowers but if you insult my precious child of death and destruction one more time there will be hell to pay." Eli threatened. The serious look was completely thrown off by the foam mustache that his coffee had given him.

  Steve snickered and motioned for Eli to wipe his upper lip. "While you are never convincing me that she's a cat I'll back off before either you or her claw my eyes out."

    Eli swiped at the foam and gave a victorious grin in response. "Speaking of getting your eyes clawed out, how are things with Lawrence's side of the family?"

  "What the hell does getting my eyes clawed out have to do with Lawrence's side of the family?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow.

    "Well you did say that some of them were pretty vicious." He pointed out.

    "Touché," Steve conceded. He took another slurp of his soup before continuing. "Well..."

    What could he say? 'I'm pretty sure Aunt Patricia hates me.' 'They keep pestering me of when I'm going to introduce a girl friend since they either forgot or don't care that I play for the other team' 'Speaking of which they want me to bring a date.'

    Steve chose option number three. "They keep pestering me about bringing a date, so much that they've got my mom and Will doing it too."

    "Pestering as in 'You should bring someone' or pestering as in 'Oh my god you have to bring someone it's a tradition and you need a lovely somebody at your side and-!!' You get what I mean." He said, using a nice Valley girl impression for the second type of pestering.

    "The second one, definitely!" He cackled. "You just pulled a perfect impression of half of the older ladies on his side of the family, oh my god!" He had to set his soup down so he wouldn't spill it.

    "I used to get the same thing from my aunts." Eli said, nodding sympathetically and chuckling at Steve's reaction.

    "How'd you deal with it?" Steve asked.

    "I brought NotEnrique home to them and introduced him as my boyfriend."

    "Oh my god!!" Steve howled with laughter, doubling over in his seat and imaging the scene all too clearly. He tried to calm down but then he imagined the aunts' faces-! He lost it all over again. Who would have guessed that Elijah Leslie Pepperjack could be so devious!

    "I could loan him to you if you want." Eli offered, dead serious save for the grin he wore. It had been Gwen who had originally given him the idea. She wasn’t exactly fond of said aunts.

  "I'm not _that_ desperate yet!" He shouted, still giggling.

  There were a few people near them, some joggers and a pair of people flying kites and they all gave them-specifically Steve- an odd look before returning to their own things. Steve couldn't give less fucks at the moment. He had been wound tighter than a coil, ready to spring at any given moment. And this-oh god this, talking and laughing with stupid soup in the park, he had been needing this. He wiped at his eyes, feelings tears prickling in the edges. "Thanks." Steve sighed.

    "For what?" Eli asked, head tilting slightly in confusion.

    "Just-" He gestured to everything helplessly, not knowing how to put it into words. "Thanks."

  Eli nodded, understanding a bit of what Steve was trying to say. "No problem."

    They switched from different topics away from wedding nightmares, although they did talk about how business in the flower shop was going. Mostly they spent time discussing what thing were superior to others, like what pizza topping was the best (Steve liked plain pepperoni while Eli argued that vegetable was superior), or if Marvel or DC was better, or whether sweet or salty snacks were the best. After not too long they finished eating and walked around the park, Eli apparently forgetting that he had a roommate to get back to. The weather was being complacent, remaining at its cloudy, not to sunny but no threat of immediate rain, state.

  And now they were on the short bridge in the middle of the park, looking down at the river below and arguing as to which Disney movie was the best. The discussion was getting personal.

  "If you think The Lion King is better than Atlantis then there is no hope for you and I refuse to complete a flower order for someone who cannot see how Atlantis is clearly superior." Eli declared, crossing his arms.

  "I gave you my fries!" Steve argued.

  "Irrelevant." He sniffed.

    Steve rolled his eyes. "Come on, Lion King is way better! Sadder too! Remember Mufasa?"

  "We are not discussing which is more emotional, we're talking about which has a better storyline and Lion King is just an animal version of Hamlet."

  "Okay, I can handle you preferring sweet snacks to salty or _vegetables_ ,” he grimaced. “on pizza instead of the classic pepperoni but you _cannot_ diss Simba like that." Steve frowned, crossing his arms as well and leaning against the bridge.

  "Ah-ha! You didn't disagree!" Eli shouted victoriously.

  "Because I'm too busy being angry with you, you fucking dork." Steve said matter of factly. "Atlantis doesn't even have any music."

  Eli grinned and leaned against the bridge railing as well. "It has action, suspense, a touch of romance -" he held his fingers up as he listed things off.

  "Oh and the Lion King has _none_ of that right?"  He sassed.

  " **And** the team working on Atlantis literally _invented_ a language just for the movie!"

  "Yeah, but there are no iconic scenes from Atlantis." He pointed out.

  Eli quirked an eyebrow. "Iconic scenes? Like what?"

  "Have you _never_ been online and seen those pictures that people post of one of their cars pushing the other off with the caption 'Long live the king'?!" He shouted. Eli rolled his eyes and looked to the side, fighting to keep a smile off his face.

  "Or." Steve continued, hopping onto the bridge's stone railing.

  "Steve! Get down now!" Eli screeched. "You're going to fall!" The bridge wasn't very high from the river, but still.

  "No I won't! And I am proving a goddamn point Pepperjack." He huffed before taking a deep breath. "It's the circle of-" he lost his footing "FUCK!"

    Eli covered his eyes which saved his glasses from getting water on them as Steve's fall splashed some water up. He looked down worried, and saw Steve sitting up and coughing thoroughly soaked and groaning as he looked down at his sopping wet clothes. Alright, he was okay. _Now_ Eli could laugh.

  "It's the circle of what?!" Eli called down, howling with laughter.

  Steve didn't even bother pretending to be angry with Eli and laughed as well. Sure, there could be a frog in his underwear now and he had a lily pad on his head but he had to admit that it was pretty damn funny. It had nothing to do with the fact that Eli's laughter was infectious and, even in the cold water, made him feel warm. It had nothing to do with that at all.

  Eli walked down the bridge and into the riverbank, shaking his head at Steve's pitiful state. "How? How and why?" He sighed, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

  "I was proving a point." He said matter of factly, crossing his arms and looking away with a 'hmph'.

  "What are you, five?" Eli laughed.

  "I kept pretending to be an adult during high school and I'm stressed as hell because of the wedding, I think that gives me the right to dick around on the bridge and fall into the river because of it." Steve said, dead serious.

  "Poetic as always." Eli complimented, hands on his hips. "Now come on, you're sitting in fish pee."

  Steve scrunched his nose in disgust and got up with no complaint, although he did kick some water in Eli's direction. The man just laughed and moved out of the way easily.

  "This is why Atlantis is better." Eli couldn't help but comment once Steve was out of the river and by his side. "No one ever fell into a river mimicking Atlantis."

  "I will hug you." Steve huffed, lips threatening to quirk in a smile.

  "Not exactly the scariest thing in the world to threaten me with." He hummed as the made their way back up the bank.

  "I'm serious Pepperjack, I will smother you and get your clothes as wet as mine." He warned.

  "Alright," Eli stopped and turned to the other, arms open. "Go for it."

  Steve stopped as well and looked at the other for a few beats before shaking his head and continuing to walk, muttering under his breath and absolutely hating how his face betrayed him by smiling even as he bit the inside of his cheek to try and prevent it to no avail. Eli laughed and jogged to catch up, he wasn't usually this...playful, but when he was with Steve he felt bolder. Or awkwarder. There was no in between. He hummed the Circle of Life and pretended not to notice Steve glaring at him.

  

    "I can drop you off at your house first." Steve insisted for the millionth time since they got back to the motorcycle, ignoring the way some people stared, and drove to his house.

  "As I already said before, do you really want N-E to see you and ask what happened?" Eli reminded, holding the spare helmet under his arm as Steve fumbled with the keys. "I could walk home from here."

  "No it's a longer walk than you think and you already invited me into your house and uh just consider this making us even or something." The lock finally complied and opened with a click. "Do you want a shirt or something?" The front of Eli's hoodie had gotten wet due to the motorcycle ride, it had been inevitable.

  "I'm fine." Eli replied, waving it off. "You on the other hand are going to get pneumonia."

    Steve rolled his eyes even though he was chilly. "Welcome to my humble abode." He opened the door and have a gestured dramatically to the inside of the house before entering, Eli followed suite.

    It was one story, one kitchen, two rooms, and a living room. It wasn't overly large but it was functional. The walls were painted a light shade of blue, a couple of framed sports posters on the walls showing his love for the game without being too much, It was cleaned than Eli would have expected but wasn't immaculate either, just looked lived in. And after how much Steve had complained about carpets it was no surprise to Eli that the floor was hardwood.

  "Sorry, I don't have a fancy change-whatchamacallit as a roommate like you do." Steve apologized. Eli rolled his eyes. "I really am sorry about this whole hassle though."

  "Ever since you apologized 'sorry' seems to be your favourite word." He said.

  "Ouch," He gave a fake wince of pain. "What, do you want me to kick you out, Pepperjack?"

  "You smell like algae, Palchuk." Eli shot back, a challenging smirk on his face.

  "Okay, now that-!" Steve pointed an accusing finger at him "Was low. I'm taking a shower." He turned on his heel with the confidence of a man who had not just fallen into the river attempting to re-enact a scene from a Disney movie and entered the room that Eli presumed was the bathroom.

    The lock clicked and Eli let out a breath that he didn't know that he had been holding. Okay, **now** he could freak out. It was one thing to have coffee and lunch with Steve, it was another to have him over to his house so he could apologize, a walk in the park? Sure, why not? But entering his house to wait while he showered?! Eli wasn't an expert in what "normal" human interactions were like but he was pretty sure that this was crossing some sort of unspoken line! What the hell was he doing?! Should he just walk home while Steve showered? No, no, that's a total dick move. Crap.

  Eli needed to stop getting himself into these situations or he needed to start a blog to advise other poor souls like him on how to get through them. The title of the first entry would be something along the lines of 'So your ex-bully just so happens to be buying flowers were you work?' Oh, NotEnrique might compare to living with him as being something worthy of a sitcom, what Eli had going on with Steve was soap opera level! Wait no, not enough drama to be a soap opera. A romantic comedy? Ah! Why the hell was he thinking of romantic comedies?! No, a nightmare is the only thing this chain of situations that he got into could be called!

  Aaaaannnddd he was still standing in the same place. Smooth.

  Eli shuffled in place, debating whether or not it was alright to sit, realized it would be incredibly awkward to be found standing in the same place and sat on the sofa. At least Steve's furniture matched unlike his own mismatched arrangement. "Keep it crispy." Eli sighed, leg bouncing. He had been all talkative and reading before but that was in the moment, where he couldn't think things through, now that he could his mind was helpfully providing him with all the ways he could screw up.

    He supposed that he could call N-E to see how he was doing. Except-he sighed as he patted down his pocket-except he had left his phone in the car. The car that NotEnrique had taken home. Lovely. Blog entry number two 'So you're awkwardly waiting for your ex-bully to finish showering and don't know what the hell to do?' Was he allowed to turn on the t.v.? Eli swore more in his head than he ever had in his entire life. He leaned back in the sofa and pressed his palms to his eyes, groaning.

  Eli didn't know how long he stayed like that but apparently too long. Steve cleared his throat and Eli jumped out of his skin. "Bored?" Steve teased.

    He couldn't respond because holy shit Steve had on a pair of jeans that fit him absolutely sinfully and that was the only piece of clothing that he had covering him, a t-shirt in his hand. He was drying his hair with a towel in the other hand. Eli didn't know how the flip Steve found time to work out but he _obviously_ did. And with how he had just showered Steve's chest was just glistening and-crap, get a hold of yourself Pepperjack! "No-I uh, I was just thinking about work. Going through the mental checklist and all that." He lied through his teeth, trying to keep his eyes on Steve's face and _only_ his face.

    "Oooof course, you workaholic." Steve rolled his eyes.

    "Well it might be partly due to someone dumping a large order on me way too close to the deadline and then changing that deadline." Eli said pointedly.

    "How long are you going to hold that against me!?" Steve groaned, putting his shirt on and slinging the towel over his shoulder.

    "Forever." Eli answered simply. "I wouldn't be surprised if you change the bridesmaid bouquets because they don't match the dress colour."

    "Actually…" Steve scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. Eli's stomach dropped. Steve snorted at his pale face. "I'm kidding, Pepperjack." He laughed.

    "Oh my god, you ass!" Eli shouted, sighing loudly in relief, placing a hand over his chest and using the other to throw a couch pillow at Steve. If they weren't in the good spot that they were in Eli would currently be calling NotEnrique to help him hide a body. Yes, Eli would admit that they were in a good place-awkward as it might be -a functional place. "I hate you, I can't believe that Lawrence chose you as his best man." His voice didn't hold any malice or heat.

    Steve caught the pillow before it hit his face. "I'm not the best man." He said, tossing the couch pillow back at Eli.

    Eli's brows scrunched together in confusion. "Really? I thought that you were with how much you've been helping out." He put the pillow back in its proper place. "Then who is?"

    He opened his mouth to answer but snapped it shut with a perplexed look on his face. "You know, now that you bring it up I don't know."

    "Are you kidding?! How could you not know?! Weren't you helping with the guest list and invitations?!" Eli didn't think that he could get more surprised at Steve's wedding planning - well technically assisting - skills. "Well who's planning the bachelor party? That should tell you who it is."

    "He said that he didn't want one." Steve replied, shaking his head. How could he be so forgetful!?

    "Does he have any brothers?" He asked.

    "Just sisters, ugh screw it, I'm calling and asking." Steve groaned, snatching his cell from the kitchen counter. Eli shook his head and wondered how Steve had survived as an adult for this long.

    "Hey Will," Steve began once he picked up. "Listen I got a question." He walked back to the bathroom to hang up the towel, voice trailing away with him.

    Eli leaned forward and propped his head up with his hand, letting out a little sigh. He had been certain that Steve would have just started ignoring him now that he had gotten his apology with and now Eli was in his house.

    Steve came out of the bathroom looking paler than he had upon entering. "What? N-no, of *course* I knew! I was just trying to prove a point to someone! Yeah, no-yeah-I'm fine, yeah of course I'm alright. Listen I gotta go, I'll talk to you later, okay? Yeah, bye."

    Eli didn't know whether he should laugh or cry at the situation, both seemed appropriate and while he just knew the answer he still had to ask. "So what did he say?" He said, trying to keep any smugness or laughter from appearing his voice.

    "I hate my life." Steve groaned, not being dramatic in the slightest. "That apparently it should have been _obvious_ with how much I've been doing and-" he gave another groan of frustration. "Of course it's obvious - to anyone that isn't me at least. How the flip did I not know?!"

    "Calm down." Eli said, holding his hands up in a 'slow down' gesture. "This doesn't change much, you know that right? You're already helping with the wedding and he doesn't want a bachelor party so you're fine in that area. Nothing really changes, well except for the speech-" Shit.

    "Oh my god I have to make a speech!!" Steve screeched. He began pacing back and forth, rambling as he did so. "Pepperbuddy, this is a disaster! I'm horrible with words if you haven't noticed by now and this is a formal thing and oh hell I'm going to fuck this up so badly! I'm not a man of words and now I have to write something not just as a best man but as a **son** and-"

    "Steve! Get a hold of yourself!" Eli shouted, startling Steve out of his existential crisis. "Calm down," he repeated softly. "Just take a deep breath and-wait did you just say 'Pepperbuddy'?"

    Steve scowled, his face flushing slightly in embarrassment. "I was saying a lot of things."

    Eli bit back the slight smile that threatened to form on his lips. "Alright, just -calm down. Breathe. And stop pacing."

    Still frowning, Steve gave in and stopped worrying a hole in the floor. He took a deep breath as instructed and let it out slowly.

    "It's going to be fine, It's not that big of a-"

    "Eli It's a huge deal." Steve interjected. "This is Will's _wedding_ , this is my **_mom's_** _wedding_ , and I don't want to mess it up just because It's hard for me to translate my words on things like this without second guessing it or choking. I mean come on, these sort of speeches are supposed to be moving and _sensitive_ and everything that I can't say." He ran a hand through his hair. "I just- I'm not so thick headed that I didn't really know that I'm the best man but it's more like I was hoping that it wasn't really going to be me."

    Silence swallowed them for some time. Steve still silently freaking out and Eli thinking.

    This is a bad idea. Eli knew it was. This is a bad idea. Don't. Pepperjack, don't. It's a bad idea. "Do you want help?" Eli couldn't _not_ offer his assistance.

    "What?"

    He chewed the inside of his cheek. The offer was a horrible idea, far too personal to even consider. "I could help you, if you want. Just-help you get your thoughts organized you know?"

    "Wait you would do that?" Steve asked, shocked to say the least.

    "Well yeah-we're friends aren't we?" He said-more like asked, not sure of what they were. Acquaintances wouldn't offer to help something like this. Acquaintances wouldn't go out to lunch and talk and fool around. So while the word _friend_ was still shaky, uncertain, and fragile, what else could they really call each other?

    Steve was stuck in silence, a million words and responses flooding his brain but none escaping his lips. "Yeah." He finally replied.

    Eli nodded, mentally letting out a sigh of relief. Alright, so they had gotten that over with. "Okay."

    There was a loud rapping on the door that sounded like someone was trying to kick it down and they both jumped. Steve quickly crossed over and looked through the peephole before rolling his eyes and throwing open the door. "What?"

    "Unless you murdered him or he's currently naked, I need my roommate back, Blinky called in about some sort of hydrangea whatchamacallit or something and he doesn't have his phone- did you shower? Whatever, I don't want to know, just send him out if he's now showering too." NotEnrique said dryly.

    "We were just talking!" Steve argued, face turning a pretty crimson. "What the fuck, you ten year old?!"

    N-E's eyes narrowed. "Call me ten years old one more time and I pierce your-"

    "NotEnrique, what have I told you about threatening to give people piercings?" Eli called from inside.

    "That it's not polite." N-E sighed in exasperation. "Fine, then tell your boyfriend not to get insulted so easily."

    Eli just rolled his eyes, having heard NotEnrique call all of his friends his lover at one point or another. It didn't faze him anymore. "Let me know when you want to work on the speech, alright?" He told Steve.

    "Yeah-yeah, thanks again." So much for not bothering Eli again. But Eli had been the one to make the offer so maybe it wasn't really a bother in that sense?

    He waved goodbye and walked out the door, NotEnrique teasing him the While time while Eli tried to get N-E to tell him what exactly did Blinky need. On the outside Eli was calm, collected and perfectly in control. On the inside?

    Screaming.

    Endless screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That awkward moment when your roommate ships you with your ex-bully. Yeet.  
> THIS BULLSHITTERY WILL PICK UP SOON I SWEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! I have too much on my plate. TT_TT I have too many fanfic ideas, not enough hands, not enough hours in the day and not enough inspiration. I usually do really long (annoying) end notes but my b and t keys are busted (Alt+116 for t and Alt+98 for b.) And typing it out is exhausting. =_= I might add notes from my table or something.  
> Anemone on a darker note indicates fading hope and a feeling of having been forsaken. On a positive note it symbolizes anticipation. We're going for a positive note.


	7. Mixed Bouquet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As fate and shitty, shitty, luck would have it now that Eli and Steve actually had the plans and the guts to meet up, they couldn't find the time to. Obviously.  
> Yup, that's the summary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEEEEEEEYYYYY, IT TOTALLY HASN'T BEEN FOREVER OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT!!! I would quote Black Panther with "As you can see, I am not dead" but I already did that in another fic.  
> Keeping the notes brief and to the point, I've been editing and revising long enough that two episodes of the Great British Baking show have been able to play and I get the horrible feeling that I've forgotten something, no matter, probably just something school related. No biggie. (kids stay in school goddamnit)  
> I'll more than likely marry anyone who offers me a coffee right now. Or at least some sense of mental stability (Ha! Sure, like that's gunna happen)

   As fate and shitty, shitty, luck would have it now that Eli and Steve actually had the plans and the guts to meet up, they couldn't find the time to. Obviously.

    There was some sort of event in the town next over so the hotel was swamped and with it, Steve's work. Hey, usually some extra work would be a good thing- no he was not turning into workaholic Eli, extra work just meant a little extra pay. But he had mixed feelings about it when it entailed a broken sink (because a young couple thought that it would be a good idea to fuck against it apparently.) So yeah, replacing that had been fun- well at least the look on said couple's face was because while they hadn't said *what* had broken the sink, on look at both the sink and their guilty faces and Steve **knew**. Eli had just about died when he had relied the story to him via text.

      Oh yeah, they were texting now, Steve's retelling of the tail had set off a spree of messages between them on a regular basis, that text being the first of many. While Steve was stuck with the sink incident along with a plethora of other mishaps here and there, Eli was dealing with his own things, arrangements for the same event, some get well soon bouquets and some mourning flowers.

      "What about Friday?" Eli muttered under his breath as he texted Steve once again, trying to figure out when they could meet up.

    The clock was ticking down on the time left till the wedding, just about two weeks at this point and he was freaking out. God, it wasn't even his wedding and he was freaking out - he didn't have anything to do with the wedding save for the flowers. Eli was pretty sure he was just freaking out for Steve- on Steve's behalf.

      His mouth quirked in a smile as he sent a second text _'Of course, I already know how hard it is for you to make a decision._ ' Eli bit his lip and hit send, suppressing a giggle. Okay so he was feeling somewhat playful. No biggie. This was fine.

    "Elijah." Eli jumped and pocketed the phone quickly before looking at Blinky like a kid who had just gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "Relax Eli, I was just going to ask if you remembered to spray the hanging plants."

      Blinky had given up trying to figure out what was going on with Eli, first he had been depressed, then back to normal, then lacking emotion again, now smiling non-stop and- ah, he just hoped that whatever it was that had Eli happy this time didn't disappear. He had an inkling as to what that could be, a few days ago Aarghmount had told him that he had spotted Eli having lunch with Steve at the park. (Aargh had been kind enough to leave out the part of Steve falling into the river.)

      "Ah, yes, I did." Eli replied. His phone buzzed from within his pocket. At least he had remembered to put it on silent.

      Blinky pretended to not notice the phone alert, Eli was always on top of his work and the customers that they had were currently browsing and not paying quite yet. Aargh was helping this one customer who had some questions about how to properly care for a certain type of plant. "Alright, I'll leave you to it."

    "Right." Eli nodded. He tried to busy himself with counting the money in the register. It worked for two minutes and then he was checking the message that Steve had sent.

 _'How long are you going to hold that against me Pepperoni?'_      

 _'*Pepperpal. I swear that was autocorrect.'_ Eli snorted. He wasn't sure if he believed that or not.

_‘And Friday works out fine for me you ducking nerd.'_

    He suppressed another giggle as he typed out a response. _'Are you sure? Friday checks out?'_

      Steve's answer took less than a few seconds. _'Yes Eli, I'm sure, how many times are you going to re-check?'_

      _'Excuse me for being cautious.' 'So we're set for Friday then?'_ He may have just sent that second text to mess with Steve a bit.

_'Yeah, and we're totally not cutting it close or anything.'_

    He rolled his eyes with a barely suppressed grin "Yeah, totally not." He both typed and said aloud.

      So they were set for Friday, no rescheduling this time, it would be insane to do so. Steve wasn’t the shop’s only customer needing flowers for a wedding. Personally, Eli didn’t understand summer weddings, it was too hot and humid and suffocating to even think of wearing a suit. But hey, business was business.  Anyway, this meant that soon Eli would have even more work, it wasn’t something 5hat he minded but now that he was actually making plans with people. Not to say that Draal, Blinky, Aargh and NotEnrique (no his circle of friends was not limited to four people, those were merely his closest ones and the ones that he saw regularly) wouldn’t invite him out to do things, they just understood how he was married to-not to his work but just to being active, having something to do, some project to fiddle with.

    So two days to go until Steve and he would meet up, two days to go over what could go wrong. But strangely enough Eli's mind wasn't providing him with all the ways that things could go wrong- even if there was a _lot_ of ways that it could. No, he was actually looking forward to the meet up, even if it was for the reason that it was.

    So naturally a slight bump in their plans occurred.

      "You forgot didn't you?" Gwen sighed, looking Elijah up and down, he was in wearing some sweaty street clothes, just came back from a run by the looks of him.

      "What- no, **no** , I totally didn't! Gwen stop looking at me, I didn't forget!" He had completely forgotten, and Gwen's 'Bitch, seriously?' face showed that he wasn't doing a good job of convincing her otherwise.

      "Elijah you promised that you would watch Abby, I told you about this since nearly a month ago! Benjamin and I have been planning to go to this activity for a _while_!"

        The colourful flags painted on her cheeks proved her point as well as showed just what this activity was. There was a Pride Parade going on in her town, the very event that had caused Steve all the extra work in the hotel with people partying and celebrating as the event drew closer. No doubt they were staying in that hotel since the ones in the other town were already booked (or had upped the prices hoping to milk the people who needed the rooms of their money). Gwen was definitely dressed for the event with a blue, pink and white stripped flags on one cheek and the classic rainbow on the other. Her outfit was dazzling as well and Eli knew that she had to be teasing her partner with it.

      "N-no I know!" Eli quickly reassured, holding his hands up. He sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Yes, it slipped my mind with everything that's been going on-"

      "You mean this weird thing that you have going on with Steve?" His sister supplied all too quickly. Her brother’s old classmate was certainly popping up in their phone conversations more and more.

    "There's no _thing_ ," Eli denied a bit too firmly. "Sure there's awkwardness and cringy, _cringy_ moments...But there's no **thing**. I'm just helping him with some sh-stuff."

    He censored his words, remembering that curious, parrot-like, Abby was holding her mother's hand and looking up at him curiously. “Hello Elley!” She waved. Eli waved back with a bright smile.

      "But I can definitely watch her for today." He finished.

      "Are you **_sure_**? I would take her with me, you know I would, but she gets antsy around crowds and you know how sometimes people get at these things and she's still so tiny and-"

      "Gwen," now it was Eli's turn to cut her off before she went into full blown mother mode. "It'll be fine, really. I _get_ it. You don’t need to explain, you just need to hand the little angel over to me and have an amazing time." He had no clue how he would explain this to Steve though.

      Her face instantly melted into relief. "Thank you." She sighed. "Here's her stuff, there's some overnight stuff just in case." She continued, handing a bag to Eli with a wink at the end.

      Eli's face scrunched into one of mock disgust. "Gross. Get out of here." He shooed her away before crouching down and holding his arms open for Abby. "Come here, beautiful."

      The result was immediate, Abby ran as quickly as she could across the short distance and practically threw herself into Eli's arms with an overly zealous squeal. “Look at my tu-tu!” she exclaimed, trying to twirl and show off said tu-tu while still hugging her uncle.

      “It’s very pretty.” Eli complimented, it was also extremely fluffy and sparkly and no doubt Gwen had to fight the little girl to get her to _not_ wear it every single day. But it fit the occasion with its bright colours.

     “You should come to one of these Parades on day.” Gwen said, not for the first time. Her brother always had the same excuse, that it wasn’t really his scene but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t dutifully play the part of big sister and relentlessly pester him to tag along one day. "Thanks again!" Gwen said with an excited squeal, bending and giving both Abby and Eli a kiss on the forehead before racing back to the car.

     Eli never ceased to be amazed- and somewhat jealous- of how his sister could move in high heels. "Did you have breakfast?" Eli asked his niece. She shook her head. "How do pancakes sound?"

      "Yes!" She cheered, clapping her hands enthusiastically. “With lots of whips creams!”

        "Of course, all of the whips creams, but let me take a quick shower okay? I stiiiink." He said, dramatically pinching his nose and making gagging noises. She fell into a round of giggles.

        "Okay!" She agreed and ran into the house. She immediately raced after Goblin who ran away. Having failed that mission she turned her attention to NotEnrique who was sitting on the couch, watching TV and until now had been ignoring the clamour, and tackled him. He grinned brightly and changed the channel to something more kid appropriate, pushing the buttons without even looking from shear memory.

    "Hey munchkin!" N-E greeted, ruffling her hair. She batted away his hands, giggling like mad. “I’m big, not a munchiekin!” she argued.

      "I'm showering, watch her for a minute please." Eli instructed even though it was completely unnecessary for him to do so. Abby adored N-E and even if the tattoo artist wouldn't admit it Eli knew it was mutual.

      "Yeah, you stink." NotEnrique agreed with his usual grace. Abby was ignoring the TV in favour for playing with his spiky hair and looking over his tattoos and piercings. The Celtic tattoo on his right shoulder was her favourite because she would trace over it trying to find a beginning or end.

    Eli rolled his eyes and put the bag in his room before heading off to shower. The water was shocking cold at first and bit at his skin but warmed up quickly. As he showered he tried organizing his thoughts- replanned the day in his head. NotEnrique had work today which originally would have worked but now worked against him. Abby wasn't a particularly difficult child so it wasn't as if her presence wouldn't let them work but she was a child and did require attention. He trusted that Steve would come with his thoughts somewhat in order to help streamline the thinking process but he knew that he couldn't relay on things going as smoothly as he envisioned them going.

        In a perfect world Eli saw Steve already having an idea of what he wanted his speech to reflect and they would just have to shape and polish it somewhat. In his mind he pictures the task relatively easy. In Eli's mind it wouldn't be headache inducing at all. In reality, Eli knew that things were bound to go differently. He resisted the urge to utter 'What could possibly go wrong?' But that didn't stop the deadly sentence from rolling around his brain while he showered.

   Even though he wasn’t at Jim’s level, Eli could cook. And one thing that he prides himself on were his chocolate chip pancakes, while he usually used the just add water formula he could also make them from scratch if need be. He also had star shaped cutters that he had gotten specifically with Abby in mind. However the first few pancakes had gone to NotEnrique who literally grabbed them off the stack before he walked out the door to go to the parlour. Abby had screech laughed at N-E's mouth full of pancake goodbye.

      Abby quickly got impatient afterwards and trotted over to Eli demanding that he lift her up. Which was how Eli finished cooking, balancing a spatula in one hand and a bouncing two year old on his hip. Goblin had returned and was watching curiously from the sidelines, meowing and demanding that Eli feed her as well.

    Gwen had a strict rule against Abby watching TV while she ate claiming that it would rot her brain but Eli of course bent that rule. Gwen was a first time mother, of course she was going to be paranoid over some things. So they ate pancakes while watching Word Girl, one of Abby's favourite shows. She loved the monkey sidekick Captain Huggyface. Eli was fairly certain that he had seen every single episode at least once by now.

   Not long after Eli finished his breakfast (Abby took longer eating kept playing with the pancakes, pretending that they were shooting stars.) there was a knock on the door. Ignoring the sirens in his head, Eli looked through the peephole and opened it.

    "Hey Pepperpal." Steve greeted, handing him a cup of coffee, at his side he had a plain messenger bag, more than likely with paper and other things they would need.

        "Hi Steve." His face broke into a warm smile as he accepted the coffee. "Thanks." Steve returned the smile and Eli felt a bit guilty for what he would have to say next. "So uh _small_ hiccup in our plans."

      "Eli, _please_ tell me that by small Hiccup you mean that you're going to put How to Train your Dragon while we work or something like that." Steve groaned.

      Steve **had** to get this done. True he didn't necessarily need to relay on Eli as much as he was but- well he was freaking out and Eli had this...calming  effect on him.

    "No- we'll still be able to work but -"      Abby came up behind him, hugging his leg. "Elley," She pronounced Eli as Elley. "More whips creams pleaaasse?" she pleaded, holding out the plate of pancakes surprisingly steadily and giving him puppy dog eyes.

    Steve blinked a few times. There was a little girl in an extremely puffy rainbow print tutu and equally retina burning green shirt that stood out even brighter against her dark complexion. Her short midnight hair fell in springy little curls and her deep brown eyes shined as she looked up at him obviously curious before she smiled and half hide behind Eli's leg, waving.

   He couldn't help but smile and wave back. "You're Abby right?"

    She nodded in confirmation, still unsure of what to make of him and therefore still using her uncle as a half shield.

    "I'm Steve." He introduced himself, holding out his hand. She gripped two of his fingers in her tiny hand and gave him a small handshake. "I see what you mean by small hiccup." He said, looking up at Eli. Steve smirked. "At least this time I'm not the one changing plans around." He teased.

    Eli's face coloured slightly in embarrassment. "I had agreed to babysit her some time ago, it slipped my mind with everything that's been going on."

    "Whips creams." Abby reminded, trying to whisper but failing.

    "Right- please, come in, I'll uh be with you in a minute, let me just- whipped cream." Eli tripped over his words as if he was wearing Gwen's heels. He went to the kitchen and Abby walked with him, still attached to his leg.

        Steve stifled a laugh and entered the house, shutting the door behind him. If this was some sort of ploy to get him to change his mind about toddlers...

    "I completely forgot that I had promised Gwen that I would babysit Abby today." Eli repeated apologetically, his nervousness making him redundant as he sprayed some more whipped cream on the tiny amount of pancake that Abby had left. "She and her partner are going to this parade the next town over and Abby isn't really good with crowds yet and Gwen wants to wait until she can walk better on her own and-"

      Eli realized that he was rambling like Gwen had earlier and that he was still covering the pancake with whipped cream. He swallowed a curse and capped the bottle much to Abby's disappointment. Steve had tears in the corner of his eyes and his hand pressed against his mouth as he struggled and failed to not explode into laughter. God if this kept going on like this his sides were going to be _aching_ by the end of the day.

      "Thank you!" She chimed, rewarding him with another somewhat gummy smile and carefully carried her plate back to the living room to eat. She completely abandoned her dull spork in favour for just sticking her hand into the mountain of whip cream until her coffee coloured skin was white up to almost her forearms in the stuff and ate it off her arms.

      Eli couldn't even come up with a proper response to that and just sighed, hopefully she wouldn't get any on her clothes. He turned his attention to Steve who had just given up and was practically howling with laughter. "She'll be done soon and then we can work." Eli said, fiddling with the end of his still somewhat damp hair. God he needed a haircut sometime soon.

  "Pepperbuddy, how do you even get yourself into these kinds of messes?" Steve laughed, more than a little glad that for once he wasn't the one throwing a wrench in their plans.

      "It's my curse." He sighed with a shrug. "Do you want to wait in the living room? I have Word Girl on."

      Steve chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds great."

      The good news! Steve had ideas of what he wanted to write and had written some down! The bad news...there were too fucking many. Some were more traditional and for the general audience, others were much more personal. He had also jotted down different phrases to use as inspiration. And Steve couldn't pick what direction he wanted to go in. Eli was the embodiment of patience for him though, giving him suggestions and never once mocking his ideas, teasing sure but never in a cruel way. And Steve was wondering how Eli could put up with him because hell, he would have decked himself at this point. Eli's help and kindness were truly gifts that Steve had no clue what he had done to deserve them.

        "While I do encourage Mr. Blinky's motto of 'Dance like nobody's watching and love like it's never going to hurt', remember to ask yourself if you'd be _comfortable_ with saying the speech in front of the guests." Eli said.

    And with that Steve crumbled another ball of paper. Eli's recycling bin was going to be exploding by the end of the day if Steve kept this up. Goblin was playing with the numerous balled up wads much to Abby's amusement. Steve hadn't yet presented a written out speech to him yet and was just writing, erasing, rewriting and ultimately hating whatever idea he had. And of course he was muttering complaints the whole time. (Truly an author.)

        "Why is this so bad?" Steve groaned. He was sitting on the floor with his back up against the sofa, knees drawn up as he used them as a deal for his clipboard. He whacked himself on the head with said clipboard and Abby giggled. Steve stuck his tongue out at her, just making her laugh more.

    Eli had asked why Steve didn't just type it in his phone or laptop or something and Steve had replied with something along the lines of how writing on paper was slower so it gave him more time to think of his words before he wrote them. Eli couldn't argue with that.

    "I'm sure it's not that bad." Eli reassured, taking a lazy sip from the coffee that Steve had brought him that had long grown cold.

      "Pepperpal, Abby could write better with whipped cream." Steve insisted. "I'm not a man of words, I'm a man of action."

      ‘You make up words like Pepperpal and Pepperbuddy so that much is obvious.’ Eli thought but of course didn’t say. "You can't exactly use action with this, Steve. Unless it's the action of writing.' He so helpfully supplied instead.

    "I know, I know, it's just-!" Steve sighed, raking his hand through his hair. "This is happening, you know? I mean- my mom and Da-Lawr- _Will_ , my almost official step dad have been planning this since forever it seems and now it's actually going to happen and I don't want to screw this up." He help up a hand, halting Eli's response. “I know that I sound like a broken record. Trust me, I am painfully aware of how cheesy and cringy I'm being, but it's hard not to think it."

    "They won't think you screwed it up, worst case scenario is that you just write something cringy and even if you do it’s just something that can be laughed about between you guys in the future." He said.

      As if sensing his distress, Abby stopped playing with Goblin and toddled over to Steve, making up motions with her arms. Steve chuckled and set the clipboard to the side before picking the little girl up. She immediately started playing one of her favourite games which was smushing the face of whoever was holding her. Steve made a funny face while she smushed his cheeks together and she laughed.

        Eli let out a laugh of his own and Steve just stuck his tongue out at him. He bit back the 'She likes you' since that was blatantly obvious. Abby usual didn't take to strangers but she was enamoured.

    Unlike Steve who was seated on the floor, Eli was sprawled across the sofa while he helped him and half watched PBS reruns. He found himself moving his eyes from the t.v. to Steve and Abby. For someone who didn't particularly like kids they sure did like him. His gaze turned fond as Abby let loose another giggle at Steve's antics. He cradled his chin in the palm of his hand, watching the scene before him with a soft smile.

      "Oh that's a good idea." Steve nodded, picking up the clipboard once more.

   "Hm?" Eli asked, more than a little embarrassed when he realized that he had zoned out.

      "Abby gave me an idea." He announced, scribbling down some words. Abby attempted to help by holding the end of the pencil to assist in his writing.

     "Abby gave you an idea." Eli repeated, trying to keep a stupid smile off his face. The two year old had given him an idea. Fantastic.

    "What? You relax me, she inspires me. Is that so hard to believe?"

    "It's nice!" Abby agreed with an eager nod.

      Eli couldn't come up with an appropriate response, not that Steve noticed with how he was now jotting down words with Abby's help. Abby gave a happy squeal and Steve nodded, saying something along the lines of how he agreed with her. Eli feared that this stupid smile was going to be forever stuck on his face. He turned his eyes to another brightly coloured show that was playing and couldn't even properly focus on it. Not that he was going to learn much from it but still.

     Goblin joined the party as well, lying on the couch curled up next to Eli and eyeing Steve and Abigail warily. It wasn't too different from how Eli usually spent his days off, just lazing around because even he needed a slow day, but Eli couldn't deny that he was enjoying it more than usual. The ambiance, while quiet save for Abby's occasional phrases, was warmer, homier. Eli sighed and stretched out on the sofa with a content sigh.

    'Not good with kids, my ass.' He thought, watching the pair work once again before shaking his head and looking back to the TV. What was on now? Daniel Tiger? God, he hated that show. He picked up the remote and clicked a button to change it, flipping through channels.

      Abby, who hadn't been paying attention to the TV for a while now, immediately broke out into protests. "Hey, we were watching that!" Steve argued, voicing his protests in a more articulated manner than his tiny counterpart.

      Eli shot him a deadpan expression before signing and changing the show back. Hadn't he signed up to just take care of _one_ baby?  "Are you almost done?" Eli asked. Not in a mean way, just curious.

   Steve paused for a moment but nodded. "Just about." He moved the pencil away from clipboard, still holding onto it so Abby couldn't stick it in her mouth.

   Abby immediately started whining, obviously wanting to 'help' some more. "Honey, if I write anymore then it's going to start sounding like a last testament." Steve explained. Abby was still voicing her protest so Steve distracted her by making funny faces and tickling her. It worked like a charm.

    Eli, who was struggling not to think that this was the most adorable thing that he had seen, sat up. "Well, let's hear it."

      "…Promise that you won't laugh? I'm not super smart like you, words aren't exactly what I'm known for." He hesitated.

    "Cross my heart or may I fall on a cactus again.” Eli promised.

   Steve chuckled before taking a deep breath and clearing his throat.

    "I could go into this whole thing of telling funny and embarrassing stories about Will but for once I’m going to try and do something seriously because both he and my mother deserve at least that much. When I was younger, I never really thought about my mom, Susan, marrying someone that wasn't my dad. It’s not something that any child usually thinks about. When my dad was out of the picture, I'll admit that I was glad. I knew that we were better off and I thought that I would be enough for her, that'd we'd be enough or each other...And then one day she tells me that she has a date with my gym coach."

    Steve paused to let out a small chuckle at that. Eli huffed a laugh as well.

    He looked up at him with a smile before looking down at the paper and continuing.

       "And my first reaction was a cross between confusion and 'ew, why?'. But once the initial shock wore off I was hurt because I thought that I wasn't enough anymore. I felt betrayed so I didn't react in the best way. And Will? Will didn't have to care about what I thought of him or whether we got along or not because hey, he was dating my mom but it didn't say anywhere that he had to put in the effort into trying to bond with me. Except he did. And that just confused me more and made me lash out more. And he just kept trying, and trying, and including me in the relationship he was forming with my mom. And after way too long I realized that I wasn't confused or angry, I was _afraid_ of letting such an amazing, positive man into my mom's life and risk her getting hurt again."

      Steve paused once more, took a deep breath and continued. "Mom, I don't have to say what a kind, caring, warm hearted person you are because everyone here already knows it but for the sake of the moment I will. You're an incredibly strong woman with a heart of gold, you always put others before yourself and if everyone had a fraction of your morale and heart then the world would be a better place.

   "And Will, you're undoubtedly one of the best role models in my life. You care about things that you don't necessarily have to, you incredibly patient, accepting, and stubborn in the best way. In you I've found a coach, a teacher, a friend...And a uh a father." He had to clear his throat at that. It doesn’t matter how many years Will had been dating his mom, that word always tripped him up.

    "And my mom has found a confidant, a partner in crime and in life, a soulmate, someone to lean on, and a husband. And know that this is the highest compliment that I can give to you when I say that you two absolutely deserve each other. "

      A silence fell between them, the only noise came from Abby who was still seated on Steve's lap and cooing as she played with the folds of her glittery tutu. Steve scratched the back of his next awkwardly and looked to the side. "And then if probably finish with something like 'Congratulations ' or. 'May you two live a long, happy life together ', and then just go 'cheers ' and everyone would drink after the toast and I'm running on and I'll shut up, I know it sucks."

   "No, no!" Eli said quickly, snapping out of it. "It doesn't suck, it- Steve that was fantastic! It- god! You didn't even need my help! It's good! It's really, _really_ good!"

          A relieved smile crossed Steve's face and he let out a breath that he didn't know that he had been holding. "Really?"

      "Really!" Eli nodded. It wasn't just good, it had rendered him speechless for a moment there. It- Steve had _that_ in him? Not that Eli didn't think that Steve could write it was just -! He hadn't expected that level of... _sincerity_. Of openness. Ever since Eli had known Steve he could use one word to describe him and it would always be 'confident'. But here...here he was unsure, he pouring out exactly what he thought and felt and it _showed_. And the way that he had worded it and presented it and-

      "Do you want a drink? I'm getting a drink. Actually I think it's lunchtime, I should make Abby lunch." Eli practically leapt off the couch and walked to the kitchen.

      "Do you and Abby want to go out for lunch?" Steve offered , holding the pencil just out of reach from Abby who was climbing on top of him trying to get it.

    "Steve you can't keep buying me lunch, I have my pride you know." Eli rolled his eyes as he rummaged through the fridge.

    "My pride goes out the window at the offer of free food." He shrugged, now trying to get Abby interested in the show on TV rather than messing up his hair.

      "It has to take a break sometime." He snarked, leading to Steve to give an 'ouch' as he placed a hand over his heart in mock hurt. Eli chuckled. "Thanks for the offer though."

    "It's the least I can do." Steve stood up and dusted off his pants. Abby was now successfully taken with the show. He walked over to the kitchen. "So what are you planning on making? Anyway that I can help?"

      "I think I'll just make some of those animal shaped chicken nuggets and wavy French fries that are in the freezer. You can get the pizza tray from underneath the sink and rinse that off if you want." Eli shrugged, already opening the freezer now that he had an actual plan rather than just running to the kitchen because he needed to get out of the same room as Steve. Cause you know, that plan had worked out fabulously. Why the hell had he gotten like that? Steve hadn’t been doing anything particularly cute or sexy, he had just been practicing a goddamn speech for fuck’s sake! He cranked the oven to the appropriate pre-heating temperature and awkwardly cleared his throat. There was no ‘thing.

      "You have animal shaped chicken nuggets." Steve repeated, squatting down and digging out said tray from underneath the sink and rinsing it off as told.

    "NotEnrique **insists** that they taste better than regular chicken nuggets, I've stopped arguing at this point. Same thing with the French fries." Eli defended. He didn't have Steve over to judge his pantry and fridge.

    "Sure they are." He chuckled, using a paper towel to dry the rest and set it on the counter. "Are you sure that he doesn't like them just cause he can bite the heads off?"

   Eli laughed. "Well now that you mention it-pfft! I can't believe I never thought of that before!"

    "I'm helping!" Abby proclaimed, making grabby hands at the frozen bags of food. Eli smiled and picked her up, balancing her on his hip. Between the two of them they put the frozen food on the tray. Steve leaned against the counter as he watched, a carefree smile dangling from his lips.

   "Steve can you hold her while I get this in the oven?" Eli asked.

   He nodded and Eli passed her over. She broke into protests but they quickly stopped once Steve had her securely in his arms. Although she did start again after a second. Natural charm didn't always work on kids.

   "Shh, you already helped." Steve soothed, bouncing on his toes a bit as he tried to calm her.

   "I want to help!" She argued and Steve was internally begging that she wouldn't start crying.

    "You already did help. You helped with the food and with the paper. Remember how you helped me write the paper?" Steve reminded, glancing over at Eli who was closing the oven door and moving to set the timer. Don't cry, pleeaase don't cry.

   "I did help?" She asked, moving from more teary to pouting, but hey. That was some kind of improvement wasn't it?

   "Yes!" Steve said quickly. "And you did a super-duper job!"

   "Super-duper!?" Abby gasped as if it was the highest honour. "I help super- _duper_?"

   "Yes, you Abby-solutely helped super-duper-duper!"

   "Oh my god," Eli groaned even though he was fighting to keep from laughing. "Giver her here before she gets _your_ sense of humour."

   "You say that as if it’s a bad thing." Steve rolled his eyes but handed her over nonetheless. 

   "I help super-duper!" She chimed, informing her uncle about this life changing revelation.

   "That's great!" Eli agreed. He turned to Steve. "And guess what's the only word she's going to say now?"

"Opps." He winced apologetically.

 

   'So Steve, how'd you spend your day off?' He could imagine one his coworkers asking. 'Oh nothing much, just ate dinosaur shapes chicken nuggets and wavey French fries while watching Martha Speaks' would be his answer.

   He hadn't _meant_ to stay for lunch. It had just happened! He had just taken a few French fries and complained that they had burned he mouth. Not like he had taken them right after they got out or anything. Anyway, then Eli was half laughing, half scolding him and telling him to wait a few minutes, leading to Steve saying that he would take the damages for the sake of fries and then Eli reminded him of the Lion King incident which Steve screamed that they were to never talk about that.

    And before he knew it Eli was giving him a plate of nuggets and fries and a cocky little "Told you it wouldn't take too long."

    Now Steve was waiting for Eli to come from changing Abby and busied himself by trying to keep Goblin away from Eli and Abby's plates and watching as on screen T.D came with a far-fetched answer for a simple question. T.D's eccentric theories and stories reminded Steve far too much of Eli in high school and brought a smile to his face. Not for the first time since he first saw Eli in the fewer shop Steve was kicking his stupid head in and wondering what he had been so worried about.

   "Martha Speaks!" Abby cheered, running over and using Steve as a landing pad before climbing off and going to her own plate that he had so valiantly protected from that hairless creeper that Eli insisted was a cat.

    "No running!" Eli reminded. He didn't want to want her to spill her food or crash into it like she had so many time before.

   "But you don't say anything about her using me as a bouncy house." Steve pointed out.

    "Pretty much." Eli grinned.

   "Meanie." He huffed. He munched on another nugget, trying to look legitimately angry as Eli laughed at him.

   "Truly, I'm horrible." Eli agreed. "It's not like I put up with you changing your flower order because you didn't remember that Lawrence was allergic. Or helped you with your speech or gave you food or anything of that manner."

  "Oh my god when are you going to let that gooo?" Steve groaned. "And stop, I'm trying to be angry with you. Besides, you didn't help _that_ much."

   Eli gave a mock hurt gasp. "I did too! And weren't you the one who said…what was it? 'You relax me, she inspires me'?" He smirked.

   He half choked on a nugget. "Okay first of all! That never leaves this room!"

   "Who would I even tell?" He deadpanned.

   "Draal." He replied automatically. "Even though I think he'd sooner bi-er-slap me, I think he'd settle for hearing something like that."

   "He doesn't want to slap you!"

   Steve quirked an eyebrow.

   "Okay maybe just a little." Eli admitted. "He's just a really overprotective friend like that. And it doesn't help that he's one of my go to venters."

   "I imagine that I was a pretty popular topic after the whole flower ordeal?" Steve assumed. Eli gave an apologetic wince in response. "It's alright if I was, I can't exactly blame you, I would have done the same thing if I were you. But I am flattered to know that you talk about me."

   Eli shoved him playfully with a chuckle. "You're intolerable."

   "Aw, I'm blushing."

   "Nope." Eli got up and started walking out of the living room and down the hall into his room.

   Steve burst out laughing. Eli turned around and leaned against the wall with a giggle of his own. "Sorry Palchuk, Blinky forbid flirting with clients after the whole cactus episode." He teased.

   He froze, laughter dying in his throat. Wait, flirting? Did Eli just accuse him of flirting? Or was Eli insinuating that he was flirting with Steve? This wasn't flirting, it was just-playful banter-! Yeah, not even he could lie that effectively to himself. Everything that Steve had just said could've been taken as flirting. The question. Had he meant for it to have that tone?

   "Geez, Steve, calm down. Stop looking like your heterosexuality is being threatened." Eli said with a slightly forced chuckle.

    Oh. Okay so wait- Eli thought - oh shit. Eli thought that Steve was attracted to ladies? Oh fuck now his reaction seemed like he had gotten offended at Eli saying that he was flirting with him because he's a man! "No-no-!" Steve said quickly "It's not-!"

    "Steve, seriously, it's fine. You don't have to go into that whole 'It's not a problem with me' speech. Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with that comment." Eli apologized.

    Aaaand Steve kept fucking up. It was like he was rolling down a hill called 'Miscommunication and mistakes' and he was hitting his head against every single rock on his way down. "It's uh- it's cool, no worries." He mumbled. Well he couldn't exactly correct Eli now could he?!

    Eli sat back down but now he was sitting next to Abby who was still eating and watching TV without even realizing - or caring about the drama that the two dumbasses who were supposed to be watching her were creating.

    Steve chewed on the inside of his cheek. With that flirting comment that he had said...did that mean that Eli liked guys? Or had he really just been teasing and joking around? Steve wanted to ask Eli but he **knew** that now would be a horrible time to ask because it could- and most definitely would- be taken the wrong way. He was already done with his food and brushed his hands off on his jeans, getting up and getting the papers that he had written, looking it over, an open distraction. So Eli had really liked the speech, huh?

    Eli occupied himself with pointing out various things in the show to his niece, glancing over every so often to Steve re -reading his speech. He really hadn't meant to make the other uncomfortable, that was just how he was used to joking with NotEnrique. But Steve didn't have to react the way that he had. Especially when Eli might have actually been flirting- just a touch. But yeah, way to strike him down and out real quick. Either way his reaction kept rewinding and playing in Eli's skull and he wanted to bang his head against the wall.

    "Say 'Ah'!" Abby instructed, poking at his cheek with a chicken nugget and no doubt smearing ketchup on his face.

    Eli chuckled and did as he was told. Okay, maybe smashing his head against the wall could wait until _after_ his niece left.

 

    Steve left a bit after lunch, not without offering to help with dishes of course but Eli had claimed to have it covered. He would have gone to visit Will and Susan but they were out in a date so that was out of the question. And he didn't want to go to the gym because he was just feeling lazy and deserved an off day. So that left him at his house, completely and utterly bored and looking for something to watch on T.V. What could he do? He had already decided on typing up the speech later, he didn't want to leave the house again but he didn't want to stay inside either and he was going to tear his head open if he didn't find some way to alleviate his boredom.

    What would be usually do when he was bored? As of late he would text Eli something funny that had happened at work or Peppers would be sending him some sort of fun fact about plants with a story as to how he learned about that and-oh...Well he couldn't do that, he was just at Eli's house and texting now would just seem odd. Besides, somehow he didn't think that a text from him would be welcomed by Eli at the moment.

    "Fuck this." He groaned to nothing and no-one in particular. He continued to click through the channels. Sports, no he wasn't pumped enough for it. Detective show, he would be lost and it wasn't really his area. Some romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock, ladies, gentleman and other lovely people we have a winner. Although he half considered putting Lion King just for the irony of it.

      He half lied, half sat on his couch in a position that would not doubt leave his elbow hurting later but at the moment it was comfy.

    About half an hour into the movie his phone buzzed and if he wasn't so utterly bored he would have ignored it. Steve unlocked the phone. Of course Eli was the one texting him.

    Steve was exceedingly glad that he had decided to check the text once he saw what Peppers has sent him. _'I decided to take Abby to the shop.'_ Accompanying the text was a picture of Eli holding Abby who had some little yellow flowers and was trying to make Eli 'pretty' by arranging them in his hair. Steve chuckled and sent a text back.

_'You make a very pretty princess.' 'You look okay too I guess, Pepperjack.'_

_'Oh, ha, ha.'_ Eli sent another picture of himself, this time with a deadpan expression while Abby was giggling next to him as stuck another flower in his hair. '*Did you pass the speech to a more formal piece of paper?*

 _'Not yet, I'll do it later. Thanks again for the help.'_ He paused but did a mental fuck it and sent a photo of himself on the couch. _'As you can see I’m very occupied doing nothing.'_

      Steve had sent pictures to Eli before but it was usual some broken pipe or some other disaster with the caption 'fuck my life' or any other weird thing he found in the hotel. But sometimes he would play a game with Eli where he would take pictures of random flowers that he saw and asked him what kind they were and Eli wasn't allowed to check online. Not that he ever had to of course.

    He hadn't exactly sent Eli a casual photo like this before but he knew that Eli wasn't exactly one to send pictures of himself and those photos were definitely adorably dorky so it was only fair. You know they were adorable because of Abby being in them, that's all.

    Oh please, Steve mentally groaned. He couldn't keep giving himself bullshit excuses like that. Eli could be a huge dork, incredibly sarcastic and sassy and the biggest nerd in the world and Steve found that more than just a little cute. Who wouldn't? But it wasn't a high school crush kind of cute, more like the same cute of seeing an animal that was too small. **Definitely** not school crush kind of cute, he would be insane for that to happen.

    Not to say that Eli wasn't amazing!

  But he was the guy dealing with the floral arrangements for his mother's wedding! He was the guy that Steve used to push into lockers and who he wouldn't admit to being friends with because of his stupid pride. And now he was his friend, officially, after nearly a decade. Even if Steve took away their not so great history he couldn't see a universe where they would work out. Not that he'd thought about it of course!! His phone buzzed again.

 _'Pfft! Haha, I can see that!'_ Steve's lips quirked in a little half smile, he could practically see Eli snorting at that. _'What, was the great Steve Palchuk's only plan for the day to work with me on his speech?'_

 _'We got done quicker than I thought it would take.'_ Steve rolled his eyes, sending the text.

_'Wait, is that a yes?'_

_'Piss off, Pepperpal.'_ His phone had already stopped trying to autocorrect that to 'Pepperoni' or any other word with Pepper in it.

 _'THERE IS A CHILD PRESENT!'_ Eli screeched through text. "She can't read." Steve mumbled in the empty room, smiling. _'And geez, now I feel bad for kicking you out.'_

 _'You didn't kick me out you dork. Don't worry, I'll survive one boring afternoon without any plans.'_ He bit his lip. Steve had been considering asking this for a while, and now he had the perfect opportunity.

 _'Although.'_ Steve continued. _'The wedding is in like two weeks and I was wondering…_

   He took a deep breath like he was about to dive underwater. _'That end of the month thing that you and the others always do, that's in one week. And since I turned you down on that last time in hoping the offer is still open.’_ Crap that didn't sound right _. 'I'm not trying to invite myself!'_ He quickly added. Smooth as wiping one's ass with a cactus.

    _'THAT'S WHAT I FORGOT!'_ Eli sent less than a second later. Steve looked at his phone in confusion, waiting for an explanation. _'I WAS GOING TO INVITE YOU TO THIS ONE WHILE WE WERE AT MY HOUSE BUT I FORGOT!'_

   _'I think you broke your caps lock Pepperbuddy.'_ Steve giggled.

_'Fudge you.' 'But you're not inviting yourself, I really did forget to invite you. You're more than welcome to come along. Might be your last chance to actually relax before the wedding.'_

_'God, I know. I refuse to be the designated driver.'_ Steve groaned aloud. _'Also prevent Draal from punching me, a black eye isn't the classiest wedding accessory.'_

_'Ha! No promises {Alright, I will}.'_

_'Great! It's a-'_ Steve's fingers hovered over the keypad. He went for the safer answer. _'Great! It's a plan then!'_ Plan. He was going to smash his head against the wall. _'I need to stop relaying on you so much for my wedding problems.'_

 _'Aw, and here I was about to ask if you needed dancing lessons too while you're at it.'_ Steve could **hear** Eli's sass.

   _'I'll have you know I'm a hell of a good dancer.'_ Steve defended.

_'Uh-huh, sure Palchuk.'_

    If Eli and he were talking face to face he would have wiped that smirk off of Eli's face by now. By grabbing a couch cushion and smacking him with it or something like that of course. _'What, am I going to have to agree to one dance lesson to prove it?'_

_'Oh no Stevie, I certainly believe that you are the very personification of grace and balance, especially atop of bridges reenacting children's movies.'_

_'Why do I put up with you?'_

_'I'm the guy working with the flower arrangements for your mom's wedding._ ' Eli replied matter of factly. _'Plus I am a delight to be around.'_

 _'Oh yes you are a_ treasure _. Now is Abby done with her masterpiece?'_ Steve asked.

    Steve received another photo moments later, and he could not stop smiling. Abby looked so damn proud and Eli's head looked like a flower crown had exploded on him but his eyes were bright, his hair tousled from being played with an arranged this way and that, his cheeks were slightly rosy, no doubt from smiling and laughing too much and he had a huge smile on his face and something else that Steve couldn’t explain and that the camera couldn’t capture. And Steve could not stop grinning like a fool.

 

    "Everything went well I hope." Gwen said when she came back later to pick up Abigail who was already sound asleep, tuckered out after a long day.

    "Oh yeah, everything went Abby-solutely perfect." Eli replied, carefully picking up the little girl to not wake her up and get her strapped into the car seat.

    "Oh my god," Gwen groaned at his awful pun. "You're insufferable."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this stupid, stupid rule that each chapter has to be at least 10,000 words, fuck it. Sincerely fuck it, we're gunna be average with 8,500 (8573 if you wanna nitpick.) UGGGHHHHH I AM BOTH DREADING AND LOVING THE NEXT CHAPTER!! JUST THESE TWO DUMBASSES WITH ALCOHOL IN THE MIX, WHAT COULD GO WRONG? (Please, tell me how you imagine it going wrong [or right?])  
> God lord this fic will be the death of me. I've considered abandoning it so many times. Like so many times. But fuck it. (If you squint you can tell how sleep deprived I am by these end notes.) Pleeeaaaaaaaaaassssssseeeee kill me. I do not like kids but I will admit to having a soft spot for Abby, I drew some shitty art for her, she's pretty much based off my sister but darker skinned. One of the things I like about using the term 'coffee coloured' to describe skin, it changes depending on who reads it, what kind of coffee are you imagining? Black coffee? Coffee with some milk? Who knows? But as soon as someone reads 'coffee coloured' it's their definition of it. I'm rambling. Blerf.  
> Mixed Bouquet: (typically mixed roses) I don't know my feelings about you yet but I care about you enough to give you flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> One more note over here, usually I write like 80 percent of the story before I start posting but I could NOT wait to post this. So updates might be slow. Plus, as I said in the top notes I need the help of someone who is an actual florist. I want to make sure that I get the elements correct and don't end up slapping a florist's profession in the face by writing something inaccurate. For example, it would be like if somebody writes a diabetic character (I'm diabetic) and writes something insane like...his blood sugar was 20, perfectly healthy levels-uh no if his blood sugar was 20 then he would be going into shock or shit like that.  
> You get what I'm saying? So yeah XD  
> Hope that the delay doesn't piss you guys off too badly...  
> OH AND I GAVE LAWRENCE A FIRST NAME BECAUSE FUCK IT HE NEEDS ONE DAMNIT. AND I NAMED STEVE'S MOM TOO, GET WRECKED!  
> Please leave comments for I live off of comments and tea and I swear i'm freaked out cause as I said I've never uploaded a story before it's almost completed so I'm fairly worried as to whether this will end up shitty or not.  
> Oh and why is this chapter called Daffodil? Because Daffodils stand for new beginnings. (Ironically I'm ninety percent sure that this will be the flower at the wedding. I've been looking up flower language all damn day)


End file.
